Land Before Time Retold
by Avatar Emerald
Summary: What would happen if a human met Littlefoot and his gang and was with them from the start? Aylene, a fourteen year old human girl, receives from her grandmother a stone that seems to be ordinary. However, it's true power soon sends her on an adventure of a life time. She joins Littlefoot and his friends as they journey to the Great Valley.
1. Chapter 1: Two Worlds

**The Land Before Time Retold**

**Two Worlds**

**We all know the beloved stories of the Land Before Time. How five young dinosaurs forged a friendship and braved the wilderness back to the ones they love. After that, they had many other adventures, made new friends, and learned life lessons. But what if someone from our world managed to travel to theirs? How would a human interact in this world? And how would this story unfold if this human were with the Gang since day one? As a fan of the series, I decided to see how the outcome of the story would be if that really did happen.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Land Before Time Series; I am merely exploring an alternate story.**

**With that said, let's begin!**

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The rumble of the car on the gravel road jostled Aylene a little as she read her dinosaur guidebook. The page she was currently reading was on a sauropod dinosaur called an Apatosaurus. For the longest time she thought it was called a Brontosaurus, until she learned that Brontosaurus was a synonym for Apatosaurus, but not it's scientific term. Interesting.

Feeling a rather harsh nudge on her shoulder, the fourteen year old turn to the nudger with annoyance. She looked at her brother who had a rather smug expression on his face.

"What is it, Derek?" she said rather irritated.

"Just wondering how your book was coming," he replied impishly.

"Fine, why?"

"Being the "Dino Nerd" you are I was just curious," he grinned.

Aylene looked even more annoyed and hit her older brother slightly on the shoulder.

"Hey, no fighting back there you two," Their dad said sternly from the driver's seat.

"Derek started it!" Aylene protested.

"Just get along until we get to your grandparents' house, okay," Their mother said. "It's not that long now."

Aylene glared at her brother for a moment and then went back to reading her book, although the enjoyment out of reading it was gone after that rather nasty comment from Derek.

It wasn't just her brother who gave her grief; nearly everyone at her school called her the "Dino Nerd" due to the fact she could spout out information on various species of dinosaurs. It may impress the teachers but it did nothing for her when it came to impressing others. So what if she had a fascination of dinosaurs? They were interesting creatures.

Fortunately, it was summer vacation and she was hoping to spend a nice week at her grandparents' house, practicing archery with grandpa, learning how to play the ocarina with grandma, and just relax.

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During a rainstorm, an egg-stealer (a.k.a Ornithomimus) crept silently in the reeds near the resting herd of three longnecks. In the nest near the tail of the youngest member were three eggs: two that were broken and only that one remained intact. It slowly began to jiggle as the little creature inside struggled to break free. The egg-stealer licked its mouth with hungry anticipation, if the egg was about to hatch than he would have a fully developed hatching to feast on.

Leaping from its place, the egg-stealer quickly grabbed the egg and attempted to escape.

WHUMP!

The young female longneck knocked the creature senseless with her own head. The egg flew out of the egg-stealer's hands and fell down the skeleton of a bigmouth. It continued to roll down the decayed spine of another dead dinosaur until it flew off into a river raging with violent rapids. It flowed down the river over a short waterfall. As the rain began to stop, it hit the ground and bounced for several feet before falling into a group of other small dinosaurs, causing them to scatter away.

Suddenly, the egg cracked open. A small tail appeared, then a leg kick out from the side, then the other. Soon the rest of the shell broke apart to reveal a baby longneck.

The infant rolled over onto its rump and took in a breath of the new air. It smiled innocently and squeaked as it took in its new surroundings.

"Here I am," a loving voice said.

The hatchling looked up and saw three larger longnecks. The one in the middle lowered its head and smiled at him. Suddenly becoming frightened, the baby longneck fell backwards and tried to scramble away. He didn't get far before feeling a lick on his back. He curled up into a ball, hiding his face under his forepaws. When he felt another lick, it wasn't threatening at all. It had a feeling of love. He lifted his face and smiled. More and more tender licks came as he turned and looked up at this female longneck. Soon, he returned it with a lick on her nose.

As he reached up to hug this longneck's face, various other types of creatures came out of their places to see the new life that had just hatched. The baby longneck turned and saw the strange creatures, feeling overwhelmed by the number of how many of them there were.

The creatures all looked so peculiar. Some had strange flabs of skin coming from their arms and very long pointed mouths. When they walked they seem to waddle on two legs. Others crawled along the ground on all fours and had two very big eyes.

The little dinosaur retreated to behind its mother's leg.

"Don't be frightened," she said gently, "Come out."

The longneck hatchling peaked out from behind its mother's leg as the creatures began to crowd around. Some of them smiled at the little infant, as if feeling a sense of happiness as the new life nuzzled it's mother's foot.

The infant longneck opened its mouth wide and yawned. As it looked at the creatures surrounding it, it jolted in surprise. It retreated away from the group and stumbled over its feet. The female longneck giggled and gently grabbed the baby but the scruff, lifting him onto her back. He delightfully stomped around on his mother's back before sliding down into the base of her neck.

"Now, you be careful, my Littlefoot," She said gently.

Littlefoot yawned again as the two elder longnecks gazed down at their new grandson. Littlefoot looked up at his grandfather and squeaked in delight. The elder nuzzled his daughter's lovingly as her child nestled into the folds of her skin.

"Beautiful Littlefoot," she whispered as the hatchling longneck drifted off to sleep in the safety of his loving family.

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Half an hour later, Aylene and her family reached her grandparents' house. Their grandpa welcome his grandchildren with firm but loving hugs while grandma kissed them on the forehead.

"Well, Aylene," grandma smiled, "you look prettier every time I see you."

"Thanks, Grandma," Aylene blushed slightly as she ran her fingers through her short brown hair.

"And look at you Derek," Grandpa said, "I see you put some more muscle on you."

"Ah, just been working out at the gym is all," Derek grinned.

"Great to see you mom and dad," Aylene's mom said as she hugged her father.

"Glad you could come and visit, Elinor," Aylene's grandfather said as he hugged his daughter.

"And how have you been, Jonathan?" Aylene's grandmother asked her father.

"I've been well, Elaine" Jonathan replied.

"Well, I expect your all tired from your journey," Elaine said kindly, "but first, Richard and I would like to present you with your gifts."

"Oh mom, you didn't have to get us anything," Elinor replied.

"That's what I said," Richard laughed, "but your mother insisted on it."

"Please, this way."

Elaine guided the family into the living room. Once everyone had seated, Elaine passed out four individual gifts. Aylene was giving a small golden colored box with a green ribbon around it. She undid the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a dark green stone on a metal neck chain that looked rather worn but still intact. She took it and held it in her hand for a while. It was such a simple thing, but Aylene loved it.

"Thanks, Grandma, Grandpa," She smiled as she slipped the necklace around her neck.

"Glad you like it Aylene," Richard nodded.

Aylene looked up and saw what the rest of her family had received. Her mother was given a set of small gold rings, her father received a watch and chain, and Derek had a hunting knife.

"Thank you for the gifts," Elinor said thankfully.

"You're welcome, my dear," Elaine smiled.

After the gift exchange, Aylene and her family took their suitcases up to their rooms. Aylene's room was a bluish beige color with a twin bed against the wall. In one corner was a dresser with a mirror on it and there were two sliding doors on the far side of the room that led into the closet.

After Aylene finished bring up her luggage, she flopped down on the bed, letting out a huge sigh, and stared up at the ceiling. After a long road trip with her brother teasing her most of the time, it was nice to finally have some space. Subconsciously, she touched the stone around her neck and stroked it with her thumb.

It had a very smooth texture, yet it wasn't completely flat. It had a few ridges that were pretty subtle but she could defiantly see small shapes when she tilted it in the light. Its primary color was dark olive green, but it also had small black specks coating it.

"I'm glad you like your present,"

Aylene looked over and saw her grandma standing in the doorway.

"Yeah," Aylene said, "Thanks again."

"It was mine when I was your age," Elaine went on to explain.

"Really?" Aylene asked.

"Yes," her grandma nodded, "I gave to you because…well…let's just say that it may benefit you in some way."

Aylene sat up and stared at her grandmother with subtle curiosity.

"Dinner will be served soon," Elaine said as she turned away, "I'm making tilapia with rice."

As Elaine left to go back downstairs, Aylene was left with the ponder question of what her grandmother could've meant by the stone "benefiting" her in some way. Although speaking in riddles wasn't uncommon for her grandma to do, this one for some reason stood out to Aylene.


	2. Chapter 2: One Wish

**One Wish**

_TWANG!_

_ZIP!_

_THUNK!_

"Bull's Eye!" Aylene shouted in delight as her arrow hit the center of the target.

"Well done, Aylene," her grandfather said as he clapped his hands. "You sure have come a long way in your skills."

"Well, I did learn from the best," Aylene grinned.

"That you did," Richard replied rather smugly.

Aylene giggled as she readied another arrow. It had been five days since she and her family arrived at her grandparent's house and already they had done a lot: grandma showed Aylene how to play another song on her ocarina, Derek went fishing with grandpa one morning, and the family took a day to go horseback riding on a nearby ranch. Today, they were planning to go swimming in a lake just west of the place. Aylene was already dressed in her favorite swimsuit, a lime green two piece with black gym shorts and dark blue hiking sporty sandels. But Aylene wanted to get in a little more archery practice before they left.

She drew all the way back to her cheek, focused hard on the target…

"Aylene!" Her mother called from the house, "We're going to take us to the lake soon, you better get ready!"

"Okay, mom!"

Aylene, slightly disappointed, put the arrow back in her quiver and she and Richard made their way back to the house.

"You can practice more tomorrow," her grandfather said as they reached the sliding doors that lead into the kitchen, "You deserve a break anyway."

"Thanks, grandpa," Aylene smiled.

Before going back to her room, Aylene grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. Once back in her room, she put them in her gym bag along with some granola bars, her goggles, nose plugs, and a towel.

She looked over on her nightstand and saw the necklace as well as two hair elastic bands and a picture she put there when she first unpacked the other day. She put the elastic bands on her right wrists and the stone around her neck.

"I'll take it off when I go swimming of course," she said to herself.

She looked at the picture and her smile turned into a frown. It was a picture of her with her best friend, Rebecca, when they were children. Rebecca and Aylene met in kindergarten during lunch. After a while, they became like sisters. They understood each other and were okay with the other one's quirks.

Just last year, unfortunately, Rebecca's family moved out of town due to her dad's job. Now, Aylene just found herself alone at school most of the time. And when she was in a group it was only for class projects. At lunch she would just sit at any table and listen to other girls talk about things like nail polish, hairstyles, boys, and other things Aylene just found to be trivial. Either she happened to sit with the wrong group of people, or she just didn't fit in at all anymore.

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It had been five years since Littlefoot hatched, and his family still wandered in the wilderness to reach the Great Valley. No matter where they went, they found nothing but dead trees whose leaves had all withered away. All the longneck herd could eat were sticks.

"Mother," Littlefoot said as he tried to bit through the sticks, "is this all there is to eat?"

"Oh, I'm sorry my dear," Littlefoot's mother sighed, "the land has been changing. That is why we must walk as far as we can each day until we reach the Great Valley."

The longneck hatchling continued to crunch through the sticks. Still, at least a little food was better than nothing.

"Littlefoot!" He heard his mother call, "Quickly, come here!"

Littlefoot ran over to where his mother called for him.

"Look, up there,"

Littlefoot looked up in the direction she was motioned two. Blinded by sun for a moment, he saw what she was looking at. As if cradled in branches was a green, very thin and moist leaf. With it having five points it looked like a star.

"A treestar," the female longneck said, "It is very special."

The longneck then plucked the treestar from the tree and carefully brought it down to her son. All the dew the leaf had collected gathered together in the center. Littlefoot laughed in delight as his mother dropped the leaf down in front of him.

"A treestar," he said as if fascinated by the green vegetation. He then flipped over on his back and kicked up in the air with his feet. It gently lighted back down onto him, covering his face. It had a delicious scent and taste, even if he merely licked it.

Looking at their grandson, both elder longnecks chuckled at the sight of the young one.

"It'll help you grow strong," Littlefoot's mother explained, "Where we are going, there are so many of these leaves."

The group began to walk again. Littlefoot carried his mother's gift in his mouth as they continued on their journey.

"The Great Valley is full of green food like this," Littlefoot's mother continued, "more than you could ever eat. And more fresh cool water than you could ever drink. It is a wonderful, beautiful place where we can live happily with many more of our own kind."

"Gee," Littlefoot said, memorized by the tale. "when will we get there?"

"The bright circle must pass over us many times," the female longneck explained, "and we must follow it each day to where it touches the ground."

"Have you ever seen the Great Valley?" Littlefoot asked.

His mother stopped for a moment, slowly turned her head to look at her son, and answered truthfully,

"No."

"Then how do you know it's really there?"

The longneck simply smiled. "Some things you see with your eyes, others you see with your heart."

Littlefoot sighed.

"I'm not sure I understand, mother."

Littlefoot's mother nuzzled her son, "You will my son," she said lovingly, "you will."

Then, Littlefoot heard the sound of laughter. Curiously, he walked over among a bushel of grass and stuck his head out.

"Littlefoot," his mother called, "don't you wonder too far."

Littlefoot was hardly paying attention to what his mother was saying because what he gauged his attention the most. It was a yellow threehorn hatchling playing with what appeared to be her father.

The little threehorn the spotted a large blue bug and charged at it. It flew off and landed on a small rock. The threehorn rammed into the rock, causing it to break. The bug lighted onto another one and the threehorn charged at it again. The bug flew off and landed on another one. However, this threehorn was not going to let this bug get away. She charged at the rock again and rammed right into it. She winced at the small headache and shook it away.

"Hey!" Littlefoot called.

The threehorn didn't seem to notice him. Instead, she got ready ambush the bug. For defense, the bug sprayed a purple substance in her face and then flew away. The threehorn's look of surprise quickly turned to anger when she heard the sound of laughter. She turned sharply in the direction it was coming from and saw a longneck hatchling laughing.

"What are you laughing at?!" She shouted.

Littlefoot at first became nervous when he saw her angry face. However, when he saw her getting ready to charge, she looked rather playful about it. He responded by leaping out of the bushes and getting ready to charge himself. The threehorn gave a small, squeaky roar and charged at him. Littlefoot ran forward. Before they met, a the threehorn the hatchling was playing with suddenly charged and stopped right between Littlefoot and the hatchling threehorn.

Littlefoot slowly backed away when he saw the elder threehorn glare at him with a low growl.

"Littlefoot!" His mother called.

"Come Cera," the male threehorn said sternly, "threehorns never play with longnecks."

Cera responded by sticking out her tongue and spitting at Littlefoot. Her father growled again and Littlefoot quickly backed away. Cera, feeling rashly bold, ran out from behind her father's leg and up to Littlefoot.

"Threehorn's never play with longnecks!" She answered.

Then her father grabbed her by the tail and pulled her away. Littlefoot's mother arrived and did the same as the threehorn.

"Longneck?" That was the first time Littlefoot had ever been called that, so naturally he was puzzled about it. "Mother, what's a "longneck"?"

"Why, that's what we are, dear," his mother explained as her son climbed onto her head.

"Oh," Littlefoot answered rather dryly as he slipped the treestar his mother had retrieved for him back over onto his back. "but why can't I play with that threehorn? We were having fun."

"Well, we all keep to our own kind," the longneck said, "the threehorns, the spiketails, the swimmers, the flyers, we never do anything together."

"Why?"

"Well, because we're different, it's always been that way."

"Well, why?" The hatchling wanted to know. For some reason, the separation of herds didn't sound right.

"Oh, don't worry so much," his mother smiled, "when we reach the Great Valley, there will be many, many longnecks for you to play with."

Littlefoot sighed again, he wished that they were there now, but there was one other thing he wished for more than anything.

"Littlefoot?" His mother asked when she noticed his sudden mood change.

"Well," Littlefoot said, "It's just…"

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From the world of humans, Aylene, still holding her bow, looked at the picture on her and said,

"Man…"

It was at that time, in two separate worlds, two different creatures made the same wish.

"_**I wish I had a friend."**_

At that moment, the stone around Aylene's neck began to glow. Aylene looked down at it but before she could even scream, there was a blinding flash of light. Then nothing.

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"Don't worry, Littlefoot," his mother smiled, "you'll make many new friends when we get to the Great Valley."

"Still it would be nice if…"

At that moment, a bright light flashed before them. So bright it lite up the entire area and caused the herd to turn away. As it slowly began to fade, Littlefoot peeked over and could just see there was a shape inside it. When the light fully disappeared, the herd stared in surprise and wonder. Unconscious on the ground was the strangest creature they had ever seen.


	3. Chapter 3: Worlds Collide

**Worlds Collide**

"Mother," Littlefoot gasped, "what is it?"

"I don't know, Littlefoot," she said as she bent down towards the creature.

Littlefoot slipped off his mother's head and leaned his head down toward the creature. It was indeed the strangest thing he had ever seen. Its skin appeared to be in several different colors and some of it appeared to be baggy. It also seemed to have very thin brown reeds coming from its head. Its arms were ridiculously long and it had five claw-like things on each hand. In one hand, it seemed to be gripping a curved stick with a thin vine tying it together. Its legs were very long as well and it had the oddest-looking feet Littlefoot had ever seen. On its back seemed to be a blue bulgy thing and around its waist was something filled with what looked like sticks.

"Is it alive?" Littlefoot asked.

Littlefoot's mother sniffed the creature. It had a very odd scent about it. It was defiantly something she had never smelled before. However, she could see the creature was still breathing so it was clearly still alive. She then cautiously nudged it.

A small glint attracted Littlefoot's attention and he saw that around the creature's neck was a green stone that appeared to be glowing slightly.

Suddenly, the creature groaned and winced.

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"Hey, are you okay?"

Aylene, still dazed from what happened, felt something nudge her shoulder and heard a voice reach her ears. It sounded like a young boy.

"I…I think so," she said as she struggled to open her eyes.

"Mother! It can talk!"

After that, she began to hear a murmur of voices.

Aylene slowly raised herself up and struggled to bring her world into focus. She could just barely make out a brown shape in front of her.

She shook her head slightly and her vision became clear. What she saw made her eyes widen in shock, her jaw drop, and nearly made her jump out of her skin with surprise. Standing in front of her, staring at her with reddish-brown eyes was a small brown Apatosaurus! Although what came next was something Aylene did not see coming, even in a dream.

"You sure you're okay?" The dinosaur asked in that little boy voice.

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"AAAAHHHH!"

Littlefoot jumped back as the creature screamed and scrambled away. The creature's bright blue eyes were wide with shock and Littlefoot could've sworn he saw her face turn a paler shade.

"D-D-D-Dinosaur," it stuttered in absolute panic while pointing at him with one of her dull claws, "D-D-Dinosaur's TALKING!"

"I-It's okay," Littlefoot said, trying to be reassuring. "We won't hurt you!"

Littlefoot's mother brought her head around to push him away. For Aylene, that didn't make things better. She fixed her attention on the large Apatosaurus and saw that there were two more as they began to crowd around her.

The creatures around her were giants, and she looked like a shrimp compared to them.

Aylene swallowed hard as she tried to regain control of herself. Her pulse bounded in her ears, she shivered uncontrollably, and she was on the verge of fainting.

The one that pushed the little Apatosaurus away brought its face close to Aylene, causing her to coil back.

"Who are you?" She asked in a voice that sounded like a young woman.

"Uh…I...uh…I'm…" Aylene stumbled for words; still trying to process what was going on.

"It's alright," the Apatosaurus said gently, "no need to be frightened."

Aylene took several deep breathes before slowly getting to her feet, gripping her bow with both hands. As she stared at this ancient beast, she noticed something about its eyes. They seemed to be almost…humanlike. Wonder seemed to merge with her fear as she looked at the mighty animal before her. She didn't know whether to run away or not.

"What's your name?" She asked calmly.

"A-Aylene," the girl shakily answered, "my name's Aylene."

"Pretty name," the longneck replied. "But I must ask, what are you? Are you some kind of swimmer?"

"No, I'm a human," Aylene said.

The moment she said that, the three larger longnecks looked at her with amazement.

"Did you say you were a human?" One said in a voice that sounded like a wise, old man as he lowered his head to her level.

Aylene stepped back as he did. "Y-Yes,"

"Well, as I live and breathe," the second elder one with a voice of a wise, old woman said with astonishment.

"Uh, what?" Aylene became baffled as to why this sauropod became interested in the fact she was a human.

"I thought those stories of humans were just myths," the one closest to Aylene said as she looked at the two elders, as if suddenly forgetting the girl was there.

Aylene became even more surprised: how would an ancient creature know what a human was? If she had indeed traveled back in time, humans would've come AFTER the dinosaurs.

Littlefoot, although confused as to what the grown-ups were talking about, was more focused on Aylene. She was indeed very strange and he had so many questions about her racing through his mind. Where did she come from? How did she get here? And why did she appear out of a light?

"Hey!" Aylene spoke up. The three Apatosaurus turned to look back at Aylene.

"Okay, I'm really confused here," she said, "First of all, how do you know what humans are? Secondly, where am I?"

"Well," Littlefoot said, "at the moment, we're in the middle of nowhere. But we're going to a place called the Great Valley."

Aylene looked at the little longneck as he slowly walked up to her. Now standing in front of her, she could see that standing up, he was almost eye-level with her.

"You want to come along with us?" He asked.

"I don't know," Aylene said, "I should really find a way back home. My family will be worried about me."

"C'mon," Littlefoot pleaded, "It'll be fun!"

"Well…"

"Mother, can she come with us?" He said turning to his mother.

Littlefoot's mother looked at Aylene for a moment. Although different herds never did anything together, but from what she could see, this human didn't have a herd.

"I suppose," she said, "but only if you want to, Aylene."

Aylene thought for a moment. She knew she had to find a way home, but at the moment, she didn't even know how she ended up here in the first place. If she went off on her own, she probably wouldn't last very long. Besides, this herd of sauropod at least knew where they were going, she would just be wondering aimlessly if she didn't stay with them.

"I guess I could tag along," she replied.

"Alright!" Littlefoot exclaimed happily. Before Aylene knew what was happening, the little Apatosaurus licked her right cheek. Aylene winced at the gesture and blinked several times is confusion.

The three grown-up longnecks laughed at the sight as they began on their journey.

"By the way, my name's Littlefoot," the hatchling said.

"Nice to meet you, Littlefoot," Aylene said as she wiped the saliva from her cheek with the back of right her hand.

"Hey, what's with that stick in your hand by the way?" Littlefoot asked.

"You mean my bow?" She asked, showing it to him her weapon.

"Yeah, what's it for?"

Aylene grinned, "Watch and learn,"

Aylene took an arrow out of her quiver; stung the bow, aimed at a tree about ten yards away, and released the arrow.

The arrow zipped quickly through the air and hit the trunk of the tree.

"Wow," Littlefoot said, amazed by the display.

As they passed the tree, Aylene retrieved the arrow and stuck it back in her quiver.

"So that's like a stick launcher?" Littlefoot asked excitedly.

"Its called archery," Aylene explained, "This is called a bow and these are my arrows. My grandpa taught me how to do it ever since I was a little girl. In fact, he gave this bow to me as a birthday present. Made it himself."

"Really?"

The herd moved onward toward the setting sun. All the while, Littlefoot practically bombarded Aylene with questions. She had to explain to him that the brown "reeds" was her hair, why she had blue bag on her back, and that her "several skin colors" were clothes and that her skin color was peachy beige.

After several hours, Aylene found herself struggling to keep up and practically gasping for air. She had never walked so far in her life and she didn't have the stamina that these dinosaurs did. On top of that, she was hungry, thirsty, and sweaty. She put her bow over her shoulder since her hand was getting cramped from carrying it, but the weight of her bag and quiver were starting to get heavier. Soon she wasn't really walking anymore but was nearly dragging her feet.

Littlefoot noticed her slowing down and ran over to her.

"You okay, Aylene?"

"Yeah," Aylene panted, "Sorry, but I just don't have your stamina."

Littlefoot then turned his side toward her.

"You can ride on my back," he smiled.

Aylene's eyes darted back and forth from Littlefoot's face to his back.

"What about that leaf on your back?" She pointed to the treestar.

Littlefoot looked at it and grabbed it with his mouth, making his back free for Aylene to ride.

Eventually, she agreed and with some effort managed to climb onto the dinosaurs back.

"_Wow,"_ she thought as she grinned, _"I'm really riding a dinosaur!"_

Although for a while, riding on the sauropod was a bit difficult, especially since she was riding bareback. Even if it wasn't perfect yet, she did manage to find a way to stay somewhat stable.

"Is everything okay?" the young female longneck asked after a while.

"We're fine, mother," Littlefoot said, "Aylene's just tired."

"Well, the bright circle is setting anyway," the older female stated, "We should probably rest for the night."

" 'Bright Circle'?" Aylene asked.

"You know, that glowing circle in the sky," Littlefoot motioned with his head toward the bright orb.

"Oh, you mean the sun," Aylene said.

The herd turned and looked at Aylene with confusion.

"What?" She replied nervously.

"You mean you call the bright circle something else?" Littlefoot asked.

"I…guess so," Aylene responded.

"Well," Grandpa Longneck said, "You better tell us your then, little human."

Aylene smiled at the idea.

"Okay, but first, let's get something to eat because I'm hungry."

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Several miles behind them, a dinosaur feared by many leaf eaters sniffed the air and caught the scent of four longnecks: three being adults and one being a little hatchling. He grinned a very toothy smile. Longneck flesh was his favorite meat. He would feast on the little runt's flesh tonight.


	4. Chapter 4: Sharptooth Attack

**Sharptooth Attack**

The Night Circle (or the moon as Aylene called it) was low on the eastward horizon when the traveling herd of longnecks and their newcomer settled down to rest.

Aylene constantly continued to amaze the longnecks. First, when they decided to rest, Aylene gathered some sticks, put some stones around in a circle formation, arranged the sticks in a unique fashion, and then took two other stones and used them to spark a flame. Soon, the spark grew into a small fire that was contained by the small group of stones. Littlefoot was amazed by this human's ability to control fire.

As the sauropods found other sticks to eat and dried reeds to eat, Aylene rummaged through her bag and found the granola bars she had packed as well as the two bottles of waters. Eating one granola bar and carefully reserving her water as best she could, she explained to the longnecks her story of where she came from and how she got here. Several times she had to stop and explain to them what certain things were such as a house, a car, and stuff that would be foreign to them. She ended with the day she and her family were getting ready to go to the lake.

"The last thing I remember is a blinding flash of light, then waking up and finding you guys."

"That's awesome!" Littlefoot exclaimed after the story was over.

Aylene smiled at the compliment, "Thanks,"

She then turned to the three older longnecks, "Now I have a question for you: how is it you know what humans are?"

Grandpa Longneck took a deep breath, "Well, it has been told in stories that some dinosaurs have encountered a curious species that called themselves humans. Usually, the stories tell of a human arriving in a time of need."

Aylene leaned in forward and listened more intently as Grandpa Longneck continued.

"They say that humans travel from another world with the power of something they call a Time Stone."

Aylene gasped and then grabbed at the stone around her neck. That's right! She remembered that the stone glowed before that light flashed. Now she was paying more attention to it, she could see that it was still glowing although very faintly.

"You mean something like this?" She asked as she held out her necklace.

Grandpa Longneck lowered his head to her level and examined it.

"Possibly," he said, "The legends are pretty vague on what these Time Stones looked like. But if you have it and you are here then I wouldn't be surprised if it is on of those stones."

"Wow," Aylene whispered. She began to wonder if her grandmother knew of this stone's power. Suddenly, she remembered what Elaine said to the day she got the stone.

"_I gave to you because…well…let's just say that it may benefit you in some way."_

She MUST'VE known! But why did she give it to her? More to the point, why didn't she TELL her?!

Beside her, Littlefoot yawned. As Aylene looked at him, she yawned, too.

"_Shouldn't have looked,"_ she thought.

"Well, I think that enough stories for tonight," Grandma Longneck said, "We should get some rest. We leave when the Bright Circle rises into the sky."

Aylene reached for her bag and opened it. She threw the wrapper of her granola bar back in there and just as she was about to put her water bottle in there, something black caught her eye. She reached in a pulled it out. Looking rather surprised, she opened the black case and pulled out her green 12-hole ocarina.

"Now how'd this get in there?" She asked.

"What's that, Aylene," Littlefoot asked as he looked over her shoulder at the shiny object in her hand.

"This is an ocarina," Aylene explained, "It's what we call a musical instrument."

Littlefoot, although still confused as to what Aylene was saying, was very fascinated by the object in her hands.

"You want me to play a song?" She asked.

"Sure," he relied happily.

Aylene brought the mouthpiece to her lips and began to play. The instrument brought a very rich tone as she played her song. The song was like water flowing peacefully through the heart of a lush forest. The little hatchling watched the human in wonder as he saw her fingers move quickly over the holes of ocarina. She also seemed to sway with the song and the slight breezed gently ruffled her hair, giving an almost majestic feel to her performance.

As Aylene played her song, she felt a calming feeling of her own. It was a song that her grandmother taught her, just playing it made her feel like she was nearby. Despite her slight anger for not being told the truth, she still missed her.

When she was done, Aylene put the ocarina back in its case and put it back in her blue bag.

"That was amazing!" Littlefoot complimented again.

"Thanks," Aylene smiled again. At least she wasn't alone in this world.

With that, the three elder longnecks settled down as Littlefoot rested against a nearby boulder and Aylene rested against the hatchling's side.

"I'm sure my family's worried about me," Aylene said sadly.

"Don't worry," Littlefoot replied, "I'm sure we'll find a way to get you back home. And who knows, maybe the stone will send you back the same way it sent you here."

Although it didn't lift her spirits too much, Aylene did manage to give a small grin.

Pretty soon, sleep took all four and they dozed off.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Just before dawn_

Huge frog abruptly awoke Littlefoot and Aylene. It jumped from its spot to catch a dragonfly and landed right in front of them. As if to taunt them, the thing opened its mouth to reveal the remains of its meal.

"Oh, that's gross!" Aylene grimaced.

Then, the frog hopped away.

"Hey, hopper, come back!" Littlefoot said as he ran after it.

"Littlefoot, wait!" Aylene quietly called out, being careful not to wake the adults.

Realizing that he wasn't paying attention, she quickly grabbed her things and ran after him, struggling to put her bag on her back and strap her quiver around her waist. She managed to find Littlefoot by a cluster of rocks that lead into the heart of a decayed tree.

"Littlefoot, wait up!" She shouted after him.

"You again?!" A voice came from inside the log, "Go away!"

Aylene stopped dead in her tracks a little Triceratops ran up toward Littlefoot with an angry face. The first and oddest thing that struck her was the fact there was a Triceratops AND an Apatosaurus together in the SAME timeline. According to her research, the Triceratops would come AFTER the Apatosaurus. What were they doing in the same time frame? Did she travel back in time or to a parallel dimension?

"That's MY hopper!" the threehorn said with a flick of her tail and her horn high in the air as she turned away from Littlefoot.

"I saw him first," Littlefoot stated.

"Well, he's in my pond," she rebuked.

The Triceratops slid down a small ramp into rather mucky water that bubbled. Littlefoot followed her and Aylene followed him. While Littlefoot slipped and fell on top of the threehorn, Aylene carefully made her way down so she would not fall into the water. The Triceratops turned to glare at Littlefoot when she caught sight of Aylene.

"What are you suppose to be?" She asked rather rudely.

"My name's Aylene," the girl calmly answered, "I'm a human. Who are you?"

"Name's Cera," the Triceratops answered prideful.

Littlefoot was about to say something when Cera saw the refelction of the frog appear in a large bubble. She jumped on it and it burst right under her. Pretty soon, more bubbles appeared with the images of hoppers and Littlefoot joined in on pouncing on them. Aylene giggled as the two continued to play in the water.

"Hey, this is fun!" Cera admitted happily as the two continued with their little game.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The scent of the longneck runt was stronger. Best of all, it was now away from its herd. This was going to be easier than he had thought.

However, now the stalking dinosaur caught the scent of two others present. One was a hatchling threehorn. No big deal. Threehorns were satisfying for a meal, but this monster's intention remained on the longneck.

The second scent was very peculiar. It wasn't from any creature this dinosaur had hunted. It made him rather curious about it.

As he followed the scents, he saw from a distance three small creatures under a rotting tree: the longneck he had been perusing, the threehorn that had joined him, and a strange, rather gangly creature.

Although his curiosity for this creature was growing, his hunger for the flesh of that longneck runt was growing quicker. He felt a deep rumble in the pit of his stomach and slowly moved in on his prey.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The ground began to tremble under Aylene's feet. All three searched frantically around to see the cause of the shakes.

Cera turned to the direction the tremors were coming from and screamed.

"SHARPTOOTH!"

The most feared dinosaur above any of its kind, the one that gave meat-eaters their name was heading in their direction!

Aylene looked and screamed in terror. Before her was the biggest Tyrannosaurus Rex she had ever seen!

Littlefoot called for his mother as the behemoth broke through the tree and stared down at them with blood red eyes. All three ran out from under the tree and darted towards a grove of thorns. Aylene turned around to see the T-Rex closing in on them.

"Further in! Further in!" She commanded as she pushed them farther into the thorn bush.

Soon they were at the center of the bush. Waiting quietly in the dark, they could still feel the ground shaking as Sharptooth searched for a way to reach his prey.

"Just stay calm," Aylene whispered in a shaky voice, "If we just stay here, maybe he'll go away." Aylene knew predators in her world would give up on a meal if they think it's too much of a hassle to get, maybe the same will be true for this one.

"Don't count on it!" Cera shivered, "This is Sharptooth! My dad told me once he chooses his prey, he never stops!"

"Oh, great," Aylene whimpered, hoping that Cera was wrong.

From above, a few thorns fell to the ground. The trio looked up and saw that Sharptooth had made an opening in the bushes and was calling down through the gap he had made!

"Get down!" Littlefoot whispered and all three fell to the floor as flat as they could.

Sharptooth sniffed for his prey and was nearly on top of them when a large branch blocked his snout from reaching them. Aylene could feel Cera shivering beside her as she felt the breathe of the monster shoot down on her.

"Go," Littlefoot nudge Cera and Aylene and the three quickly and quietly made their way to the other side of the bush. When they came to a place where the path split in two, Littlefoot and Aylene headed for the path on the left.

Cera rebelled at the idea and took the one on the right!

"Cera, come back!" Aylene shouted as she ran after her.

"Aylene, wait!" Littlefoot called as he raced after her.

Soon the path brought them out into the open. Sharptooth saw the little longneck and immediately dove for him. Aylene heard Littlefoot scream but was too afraid to look back. Her heart bounded in her chest and her legs were shaking so bad that it was getting hard for her to run. Regardless, she continued to run until she was in another thorn bush, even when she lost sight of Cera. Again from behind, she heard Littlefoot scream. But she also heard the roars of Sharptooth and the snapping of his large jaw.

When she finally gained the courage to look, she whipped her head around and saw that Littlefoot was tangled up in thorns and Sharptooth was closing in!

"LITTLEFOOT!" She cried.

As if suddenly feeling brave, Aylene found herself running back to her friend.

"NO, AYLENE!" Littlefoot shouted, "SAVE YOURSELF!"

Aylene didn't listen; instead she grabbed one of the branches binding Littlefoot with her left hand and drew and arrow with her right. She didn't have a knife, so her arrowheads were her best option.

"JUST HANG ON!" Aylene screamed.

Sharptooth continued to snap his jaws at Littlefoot. Aylene saw that there was a vine over his snout that was holding him back. However, that branch wasn't going to hold for much longer.

Aylene hastily began to cut though Littlefoot's bindings with her arrow. Finally, she cut him free! But the branch she cut snapped back and a thorn drove into Sharptooth's right eye!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sharptooth roared in pain and burst up out of the thorn bush. His eye hurt terribly as he managed to get the thorn out. Even in his pain, he realized what that creature was. He, too, had heard the tales of beings from another dimension. He heard of their bravery and intelligence, their ability to adapt with their environment. That creature used a sharp rock on a stick to cut the vines, which was proof enough.

That creature was a HUMAN!

And how DARE she and that longneck hurt him! Not only would he feast on them, he would have REVENGE on them!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Littlefoot and Aylene managed to catch up with Cera as Sharptooth leapt out of the bushes. The ground shook as he landed behind them. All three lost their balance and fell. Sharptooth blew his hot, stinky breathe onto them in rage and moved in towards Littlefoot and Aylene for the kill.

Suddenly, a large tail whipped around and smacked the T-Rex away. He stumbled for several feet before slamming his head into a rock. All three turned and saw Littlefoot's mother, glaring at her son's attacker. They rushed under the mighty Apatosaurus as Sharptooth struggled to get up. He hit his head against the rock several times before it smashed to pieces.

"Run! Run!" The female longneck said as she pushed the three away. By then, Sharptooth was up and advancing on them.

Littlefoot, Aylene, and Cera bobbed and weaved to stay away from the longneck's feet as she maneuvered in and out of the range of Sharptooth's jaws, waiting for a moment to strike. Sharptooth, fully enraged, snapped at her continuously as he moved in closer.

Finally, Littlefoot's mother whipped her tail around again and hit Sharptooth against a rock wall. At first, Aylene thought she had knocked him out. But as the three ran away to safety, a shadow cast over them. Sharptooth had jumped high into the air and landed on Littlefoot's mother's back.

The three young ones helplessly stared in horror as they watched Sharptooth grab a chunk of flesh of the older longneck with his jaws and rip it clean off!

The Apatosaurus managed to dislodge Sharptooth from her back, but the injury was very severe. Again, Sharptooth advanced on his prey. He was not going to let that little runt and human escape so easily.

With a tremendous effort, Littlefoot's mother swung her tail and knocked Sharptooth to the ground. He slid down a hill into a bunch of rubble.

"Mother!" Littlefoot cried.

"Don't worry," She panted, "just run!"

The three set off running again. Aylene struggled to keep up and Littlefoot soon realized that she was quickly falling behind.

Like she went back for him, he went back for her.

"Aylene, get on!" He said as he turned his side toward her to mount.

Aylene quickly got on and clutch his neck for dear life as he raced forward.

"Mrs.," Aylene said to Littlefoot's mother when they caught up, "Once we find a safe place I'll take a look at that injury! I think I can help!"

"_I hope I can help,"_ was the last thought that crossed Aylene's mind before the ground started to tremble again. This time, it wasn't because of Sharptooth.

"EARTHSHAKE!" Cera cried.


	5. Chapter 5: Earthquake and Tragedies

**Earthquake and Tragedies**

The ground shook violently under the group as the scrambled to safety. A large rock spiked up and separated the children from the elder. They scrambled away and soon found themselves trapped among a group of rocks. From behind, Aylene heard a vicious roar. She turned and screamed.

"Sharptooth's back!"

Sure enough, Sharptooth managed to get up out of the rubble and was quickly advancing on the children, fangs dripping with saliva.

Littlefoot and Cera sprinted away with Aylene still clutching Littlefoot's neck tightly. At the speed he was going, if he happened to buck her off, she would no doubt get seriously injured or worse.

Sharptooth quickly gained on the trio and was now over them. As he stomped his left foot down, they flung up and soon found themselves riding on it. He tried to shake them off but as they came to a crack in the earth, hot steam shot out, nearly scalding Sharptooth's foot.

As the behemoth jerked back from the sudden shock, Aylene flew off of Littlefoot, over the crack, and landed hard on the opposite piece of earth. She twisted in pain as she struggled to regain her senses. The taste of iron filled her mouth as she struggled to sit up against the rumbling earth below her.

From behind, she heard Littlefoot and Cera scream as well as Sharptooth's roar. She quickly whipped her head around in time to see Sharptooth slip and slide down the rock that had now angled toward the abyss below.

"MOTHER!" Littlefoot cried as he and Cera gripped Sharptooth's tail.

From the far side, Aylene could see the elder Apotosaurus had fallen among a bunch of rocks. She raised her head when she heard her son's cry for help. Slowly and weakly, she managed to get to her feet. Aylene couldn't see what was happening on the edge where Littlefoot, Cera, and Sharptooth had fallen, but she could hear the roars and snaps of the T-Rex. She trembled uncontrollably as she struggled to get to her feet. She hated to imagine Sharptooth getting a hold of those little hatchlings. She wanted to help them, but she was scared stiff.

Littlefoot's mother made it to the edge in time to smack Sharptooth off of the edge just when he was about to devour the children. He fell off into abyss as she quickly grabbed Littlefoot and Cera by their tails. Aylene watched in horror as she saw him fall into the blackness of the gorge below. She quickly backed away from the edge, for her fear of heights gave her a sudden violent jolt.

Littlefoot ran over to Aylene the moment his mother let him and Cera go.

"Aylene, are you alright?!" He asked in a shaky voice.

"I'm fine," Aylene panted, wiping some blood from her mouth "Are you okay?"

Littlefoot nodded.

Cera ran off in the opposite direction, screeching for her family. Littlefoot, his mother, and Aylene set off back toward the herd when the earthquake worsened. Spikes of rocks sprung up from what seemed to be everywhere, the land seemed to role like a wave, and masses of areas with dinosaurs dislodged from the main land and fell into the crevasse, taking the herds with them.

As Cera approached a small dip, she could see her father in sight. As she called out for him and sprung forward, the land split, creating a huge gap. Cera barely manage to avoid falling off the edge and scrambled away.

As Littlefoot and his group approached a rock formation, the earth below Littlefoot and Aylene shifted, elevating them up, leaving Littlefoot's mother below among the plumes of dirt caused from the shifting of rocks. Aylene clutched Littlefoot, the little longneck wrapped his neck around Aylene, and both trembled as the earthquake continued.

Suddenly, almost as quickly as they came, the tremors stopped.

The land had changed drastically. Sections that were once flat were now lined with cliffs. On a lower section, Cera stared up in despair as her family's faces peeked over the top of the large wall of rock. And the newly formed canyon made it all the more impossible for her to reach them.

Littlefoot and Aylene looked down from where they were and saw the destruction. From the sky, dark clouds began to form and pretty soon they found themselves caught in down pour.

"Mother," Littlefoot whispered.

"C'mon," Aylene said, "We gotta find her."

The two quickly but carefully made their way down the to the ground below. And even when they got there, they still had to maneuver over broken rocks and constantly jump from one ledge to another. The whole time the rain showed them no mercy. It began to come down in torrents. Soon, Littlefoot and Aylene were soaked to the bone, cold, and miserable. But they still continued their search.

"MOTHER!" Littlefoot called out.

"MRS.!" Aylene shouted.

"MOTHER, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

From the corner of her eye, Aylene saw something move. She turned sharply to see a dark object lying limp on a outcrop of rocks.

"LITTLEFOOT, OVER THERE!" She pointed.

Littlefoot turned and saw what she was pointing at.

"MOTHER!"

The two quickly ran over to the fallen Apatosaurus. She groaned weakly as she heard them approach.

"Oh, no…" Aylene whispered. By the looks of the longneck already, she knew there was nothing she could do now.

"Mother," Littlefoot whimpered as they reached her. "Please get up."

"I'm…not sure I can, Littlefoot," she replied feebly as she tried to hoist herself up.

"Yes you can," the longneck hatchling pleaded, "Get up,"

Littlefoot's mother tried to get to her feet, but her strength had gone from her. She sagged for a moment, then fell, rocks crumpling away as she did.

Littlefoot laid down in front of his mother's face. He didn't know what was going on. All he knew was that his heart was feeling like it was about to break and he felt sick to his stomach.

"Dear sweet Littlefoot," his mother struggled to say, "Do you remember the way to the Great Valley?"

"I guess so," Littlefoot struggled to hold back the tears, "But why do _I_ have to know, you're going to be with me!" Littlefoot leaned in closer and nuzzled his mother's face.

"I'll be with you," the female longneck said as her tail went limp. "Even if you can't see me."

"What do you mean if I can't see you?" Littlefoot looked at his mother's face, "I can always see you."

"Littlefoot," His mother breathed. "Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely."

Littlefoot's mother eyes slowly closed as she breathed out her last breathe. For a moment, there was silence.

"Mother," Littlefoot whispered, "Mother!"

Nothing.

Littlefoot began to sob as he realized the truth; his mother was gone. Tears rolled down his face and he felt as if his heart had just broken in two. The rain didn't affect him anymore; he couldn't even notice it. All he could think of was that his mother was dead and feeling that it was his fault. If he hadn't wandered off, he wouldn't have run into Sharptooth, and he wouldn't have hurt his mother.

From where she was standing, Aylene was also crying. Despite the cold rain splashing against her, she couldn't feel it. She had gone numb. She sank to her knees, ignoring the shots of pain the small rocks sent through her legs, buried her face in her hands, silently let her tears fall. She only thing she managed to feel was her elbow hitting her quiver. When she looked at her arrows, guilt stabbed her. She HAD a weapon; she should've used it when she had the chance. She could've ended it sooner if she had only stood her ground and shot Sharptooth down when she had the chance. But instead she ran like a coward, she let Littlefoot's mother get hurt, she LET it happen!

"_**This is all my fault!"**_ They both sobbed at the same time.

They both looked at each other when they said that. Littlefoot ran over to Aylene and nuzzled against her, still weeping. Aylene wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close to her. The two just sat there in the pouring rain, sharing in the other's misery.

"I want to go home," Aylene whispered sorrowfully under her breath. But the stone around her neck, the only source of light they had, didn't respond. It just continued to glow faintly.


	6. Chapter 6: Rooter

**Rooter**

Lightening flashed across the sky. Aylene jolted up and saw that a lightening storm was coming. The two had to find shelter.

"Littlefoot, c'mon," she choked, "we can't stay here."

Littlefoot didn't respond, he just continued to cry against her shoulder. Aylene had to help him as best she could back up and guide him away from the dead Apatosaurus. Considering that he was at least three times the size of her, the task proved to be difficult. Plus, her strength was nearly drained due to the events that had taken place. Her muscles ached and her legs felt like putty.

Littlefoot didn't feel any better. In fact, he felt worse. His stomach ached and his head throbbed. His legs were so weak that he could barely stand up, let alone walk. He barely noticed Aylene's persistence to find shelter. All he could think about was his mother.

Finally, Aylene firmly placed both her hands on both sides of his face and made him look at her straight in the eye.

"Littlefoot, listen," she pleaded, "I know you're upset and scared, but we have to get out of the rain! It's not safe out here in the open!"

Littlefoot nodded slightly. She was right. They had to find a safe place. Finding just enough strength to walk, he and Aylene continued to wander through the rain. They got further and further away from Littlefoot's mother until they could no longer see her. The rain continued to fall and lightening flashed across the sky, causing Aylene more worry. With each strike, the storm seemed to be getting closer.

After about half an hour later, they came to some rocks that toppled over during the quake, creating a roof-like structure. They got under it and out of the rain. The large rock was just a few feet above their heads, allowing them to stand up easily. It was still rather small in terms of floor space. A large, round shape rested at the back and gave them very little room to maneuver.

"_At least it's dry,"_ Aylene thought as she took her bag and quiver off. She shivered and hugged herself as the cold rain on her skin began to take over.

Littlefoot just collapsed on the floor of the cave near the back, his strength completely gone. His tears continued to fall as the image of his mother's fight replayed over and over in his mind, refusing to leave him alone.

The same fight haunted Aylene's memory as well. Stabs of guilt continued to pierce her heart as she heard the little longneck whimper. Sharptooth killed his mother and the human girl did nothing to save her. Her tears had run dry, but she wanted desperately to let them fall again.

One thing was for sure; this memory would be ingrained in both of them for the rest of their lives.

Suddenly, from behind the longneck, the large object _moved!_

Littlefoot jumped away in fear.

"Littlefoot!" Aylene yelped as she grabbed her bow and an arrow out of her quiver. Whatever this thing was, she wasn't going to let it hurt her friend this time.

"What's going on here?!" A gruff voice came from the thing. It turned around completely and Aylene saw that it was an old Scolosaurus. His skin was a dark green and he had three rows of spikes on his back. His snout was of a dark tan color and he had dark eyes. And apparently what appeared to be dark tan eyebrows.

Littlefoot backed away, whimpering. Aylene ran over to her friend to assure him that she was there. The Scolosaurus looked at the two and seemed to be disgusted.

"What's your problem? You're not hurt!" he huffed when he saw Littlefoot.

"Back off!" Aylene snapped.

The elder looked at Aylene, rather half-surprised to see her.

"It's not fair," Littlefoot sobbed as he scowled at the old Scolosaurus. "She should've known better. That was Sharptooth!" The hatchling turned away and mumbled loudly, "It's all her fault."

"All "who's" fault?" The elder dinosaur asked gruffly.

"Mother's!" Littlefoot blurted out. Then he turned to Aylene and cried into her shoulder again. Aylene place her bow and arrow down and gently hugged him, glaring angrily at the old dinosaur.

"A T-Rex called Sharptooth attacked us!" Aylene bitterly explained, "Littlefoot's mother died saving us! So don't say we're not hurt!"

The Scolosaurus's eyes softened as he began to understand the situation.

"I see," he whispered solemnly. "I see."

"Why did I wonder so far from home?" Littlefoot whimpered.

"No, it's my fault," Aylene choked, "I should've shot that monster down when I had the chance."

"Oh, it not either of your faults," the elder kindly said, "And it's not your mother's fault. Now, you pay attention to old Rooter."

Littlefoot and Aylene looked up at Rooter.

"It is nobody's fault," he continued, looking at Littlefoot. "The Great Circle of Life has begun. But you see, not all of us arrive together at the end."

"What'll I'll do," Littlefoot whimpered, "I miss her so much."

"And you'll always miss her," Rooter kindly continued, "but she'll always be with you as long as you remember the things she taught you. In a way, you'll never be apart. For you are still apart of each other."

The words that Rooter spoke of were slowly mending the break in Littlefoot's heart. Not completely, but it was enough to give the longneck a sliver of hope again. However, his stomachache still gave him discomfort.

"My tummy hurts," he moaned.

"Well," Rooter gently replied, "That, too, will go in time, Littlefoot. Only in time."

Rooter then looked at Aylene.

"As for you, I take it that you're a human,"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Aylene responded, surprised.

"When you've been around as long as I have," Rooter explained, "you hear many things. I've heard the tales of humans throughout my years. Quite extraordinary species, I may say. Now tell me, what's your name?

"Aylene,"

"Well, little Aylene," Rooter calmly said, "I can see you have a powerful spirit. You'll find your courage someday. Just remember this: true strength comes from those you keep close to your heart."

Aylene just stared at the old Scolosaurus. How was he so sure that Aylene would find her courage? And what did he mean by "powerful spirit"?

Without speaking another word, Rooter just walked out of the fallen rocks and into the rain.

With Rooter gone, there was more space for the two lost ones. Aylene opened her blue bag and pulled out her towel. She dried herself off as well as she could. She also used it to wring the water out of her hair. Seeing Littlefoot still soaking wet, she walked over to him and dried him off with the towel as well. He barely paid any attention to her. He didn't even notice the gnawing hunger in his stomach. All he could do was just lie there and think about his mother.

It pained Aylene to see Littlefoot like this. She had never witness the death of anything before, let alone someone's family member. But if it hurt her this much, she knew Littlefoot was feeling it ten-fold. And again, there was nothing she could do about it.

When she was done, Aylene laid her towel over a rock to dry. She then went over to a more comfortable part of the cave and settled down to rest, wanting to give the longneck some space. She hugged herself and curled up into a ball, shivering with cold. She glanced down at her necklace and clutched the stone. She just wished that it would just send her home and back to her family. This adventure may have been exciting at the beginning, but now…she just wanted to leave it behind.

Littlefoot heard Aylene shivering and looked over at her. He had only known this human for two days and already they had gone through a lot together. Seeing her like this, so cold and small, made him get up from his spot, walk over and lay down next to her. Aylene felt his body heat as he did and looked up at him.

"Littlefoot?"

"At least we're not alone," He whispered as he laid head down.

As the longneck drifted off to sleep, the words lingered in Aylene's mind. If she did somehow manage to get home, Littlefoot would be alone. Sure, she maybe the only human in this time, but at least she knew her family was still alive. As of now, Littlefoot had no one and had witnessed the death of a family member, one of whom he loved dearly. If she left him, she would be abandoning a friend.

"_I can't leave him like this,"_ she thought, _"But…I still want to go home."_

Feeling torn between helping a friend and longing for home, Aylene fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7: Whispers and Promises

**Whispers and Promises**

_Aylene sprinted across the deserted plain. The behemoth was close behind her._

"_Littlefoot!" She cried, "Littlefoot, where are you?!"_

_Suddenly, she felt as if her legs were caught in quicksand. Sharptooth caught up to her. She looked up in terror at him, but he just ran right by her. She looked in the direction he was going and saw Littlefoot on the horizon._

"_Littlefoot, look out!" Aylene called out to him._

_But it was too late. Before the little longneck could get away, Sharptooth caught him, trapping Littlefoot underneath one foot. The Apatosaurus desperately struggled and strained to get free but to no avail._

_Aylene gripped her bow and tried to aim at Sharptooth, but before she could let loose her arrow, her bow exploded into a million splinters._

_Sharptooth turned to Aylene with his one good eye and grinned wickedly. He seemed to enjoy her helplessness._

"_Don't you see, little human," he snarled in a dark tone, "You can't protect him! You can't even protect yourself! You're pathetic!"_

"_No! Stop, please!" Aylene shouted with tears welling up in her eyes. "Don't hurt him! Kill me instead!"_

"_Oh, don't worry," Sharptooth growled, "Once I'm finished with him, you're next!"_

_Sharptooth then bent down towards Littlefoot, jaws ready to kill._

"_AYLENE!" Littlefoot cried, "AYLENE, HELP!"_

_Sharptooth was now dangerously close to Littlefoot's flank, readying to bite off his flesh!_

"_LITTLEFOOT! NO!"_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Aylene's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright. Her heart raced and her breathing was heavy. She looked around and saw that she was back in the cave. Outside, the sun came out and made the land shine a reddish gold due to the dirt that gave off the same color.

"It was just a nightmare," she sighed with relief. That is until she looked around the cave again.

Littlefoot was _gone_!

"Littlefoot?" She quietly called, thinking that maybe he moved to a different part of the cavern. No response.

"Littlefoot!" she called again, this time louder. Still nothing.

Panic started to rise as she got to her feet and rushed out of the cave, ignoring the soreness in her legs from yesterday. The brightness from the sun blinded her for a moment and made her blink. When she regained her vision, she desperately scanned over her surroundings for any sign of the hatchling.

"Littlefoot!" She cried out desperately.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move. She turned sharply and saw Littlefoot in a large footprint. It was a sauropod footprint for sure. He rubbed his face against it and whimpered. When he saw Aylene, he slowly got up out of it; looking back with one more glance of sadness and sniffled.

However, Littlefoot's emotion of sadness almost vanished when Aylene rushed at him and wrapped her arms around his neck again. She sank to her knees and dug her face against his shoulder. She shook violently as she struggled to hold back the tears and clutched Littlefoot tightly.

"Aylene…?"

Aylene tightened her grip and let her tears fall. Littlefoot wrapped his neck around her. For a moment, they clung to each other like they did during the earthquake: like two shipwrecked survivors in the cold rain. As the wind blew past them, they both heard a faint whisper.

"_Littlefoot,"_

Both jolt up and looked around for the source of the voice. What they saw was the same treestar that Littlefoot's mother had given him gently falling down from the sky and landing in the Apatosaurus footprint. Littlefoot cautiously walked over to it. In the center of the leaf, water collect to make some kind of mirror. He looked in it and saw his refection.

"_Dear Littlefoot,"_ the voice said again and the water in the leaf rippled. It was his MOTHER'S voice! But…was the treestar the thing talking to him? His eyes widened in shock and he jolt back for a moment.

"_Do you remember the way to the Great Valley?"_

Littlefoot slowly shook his head.

"_Follow the Bright Circle past the great rock that looks like a longneck and past the mountains that burn."_

Littlefoot nodded as his mother's voice instructed him.

"_I'll be in your heart, Littlefoot,"_ her voice said lovingly, _"Let your heart guide you."_

A moment after that, there was just silence. All that could be heard was the wind blowing past the landscape.

Finally, Littlefoot took the treestar in his mouth and threw it onto his back. He turned and looked at Aylene, who was now standing.

"I'll go get my things," Aylene said as she walked back to the cave.

When she got there, she fwipped the towel to clear it of any dirt it may have collected before rolling it up and putting back in her gym bag. She slung on the bag before strapping her quiver around her waist and grabbing her bow. As she looked at her weapon, she gripped it tight and scowled as the nightmare returned to her.

"I won't make the same mistake twice," she mumbled to herself.

With that, she turned and walked out of the cave where Littlefoot was waiting for her.

"You okay, Aylene?" he asked, "You…kinda scared me back there."

"Sorry," Aylene sighed, "It's just…"

Aylene's voice trailed off. She didn't want to tell the longneck about her nightmare; that would just scare him even more. Although she knew that Sharptooth had fallen into the ravine, she couldn't help but worry about it. Instead, she just sighed.

"Never mind, it's nothing. C'mon, let's get moving,"

The two began walking toward the west. Soon they found themselves walking along the ravine that divided them from Littlefoot's grandparents. The cliff rose high above their heads and seemed to touch the sky.

"Looks like we won't be able to go this way," Littlefoot gloomily said. "I'm not very good at climbing."

"Neither am I," Aylene said, although that was a half lie. She certainly had the muscle in her arms and legs to climb, but one little thing always prevented her from climbing anything: her acrophobia.

As they walked along the edge of the chasm, Aylene made sure to keep her distance away from ditch as far as she could. She didn't want to look down into that straight drop, lest she would faint or something. Littlefoot took notice of Aylene's actions and became rather curious about them. While he was three feet away from the canyon, she was like three yards away.

"What's wrong Aylene?"

"Nothing," Aylene answered rather quickly

"C'mon, you can tell me. Why are you walking so far over there?"

Aylene looked at Littlefoot with peculiar expression. Finally, she took a deep breath and admitted,

"I'm afraid of heights! There, I said it!"

Littlefoot turned and looked at Aylene with a funny face. Unlike her, Littlefoot enjoyed being high up. Maybe because he was accustomed to being lifted up high ever since he was a baby. But Aylene saying she was afraid of heights, and the way she said it, sounded rather…funny.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said.

"Oh sure," Aylene groaned, "except falling off and rushing to your doom. And probably having your heart stop before you hit the bottom of a bottomless pit."

"C'mon, it's not that bad," the longneck replied.

"Maybe not for you. Because when you grow up you'll be a giant and tower over me."

Both laughed slightly at the joke, the first laugh they had in a long time. Littlefoot turned and looked at his treestar, then a frown returned to his face. Aylene saw his reaction and looked away sadly, rubbing her arm as she did.

"I miss her," Littlefoot whimpered. "I miss my family,"

"I miss my family, too," Aylene responded.

They both looked at each other. Although they were of different species and from different worlds, they knew in that instance they had at least one thing in common: they were separated from their families.

Littlefoot circled the ground with his paw and Aylene let out a sigh.

"Hey, Littlefoot," She finally said.

"Yeah?"

"Listen," She began, "I know that we haven't know each other for long, but I want to help you find your way to the Great Valley."

Littlefoot looked up at the human.

"I thought that's what you were already doing?"

"Well, yes," Aylene mumbled, "but when I say, "help", I mean it in a more serious sense."

Littlefoot stared in confusion.

"Look," Aylene continued, "I don't mean to make this hard, but what happened last night made me realize that it was only a taste of the dangers that we'll have to face. I…I don't want to lose anyone else. And right now, all we have is each other. I don't want to lose you, too."

Littlefoot looked away as tears welled up in his eyes.

"I don't want to lose you either," he admitted sadly, "You're the only friend I've ever had."

"So, I want to make a promise," Aylene said.

"A promise?" Littlefoot asked.

"Yeah, I always find I feel better if I make a promise," Aylene explained.

"Okay," Littlefoot smiled slightly, "Then…let's promise that we'll stay together no matter what."

Aylene smiled back.

"And I also promise that no matter what happens, I'll always be there when you need me," She stated.

"And I'll always be there when you need me," the longneck replied.

Aylene then held out her right hand. At first, Littlefoot didn't know what to do with the gesture.

"You're supposed so shake on it with you hand," Aylene explained, "or in this case I guess it would be your paw."

Littlefoot nodded in understanding and held out his right paw. The two shook hands as their pact was made.

With that, the two set out on their journey once again.


	8. Chapter 8: Cera

**Cera**

The sun rose high in the sky as the two companions continued to walk along the side of the gorge. As dehydration began to take over, Aylene pulled out her water bottle that she opened the other night. She also gave Littlefoot some water from her other water bottle, making sure to preserve what water they had since the uncertainty of _when_ they would find fresh, drinkable water again was the important thing on their minds. Aylene was just glad she was smart enough to packtwo _large_ bottles.

To pass the time, the two began to have casual conversations. Littlefoot still had so many questions to ask Aylene, and now seemed to be appropriate.

"So, Aylene, what are your arrows made of?"

"Well," Aylene pulled out one of her arrows, "the stick, which is called the shaft, is made of wood. The arrowhead is made of stone, and the flippers on the end, which are called fletchlings, are made of feathers."

Littlefoot examined the arrow with curiosity. Three different things all rolled into one to create something different and useful. Very interesting.

"My grandpa taught me how to make my own arrows," Aylene went on to explain.

"That's pretty neat," Littlefoot replied.

"Yeah," Aylene shrugged dismally as a thought crossed her mind. "Although I'm not sure how much damage an arrow could do to a T-Rex."

"T-Rex?" The word was new to Littlefoot.

"Short for Tyrannosaurus Rex. That's what we call a dinosaur like Sharptooth," Aylene said. When she caught the glistening in Littlefoot's eyes and his expression change to sadness again, she quickly said, "We also have name for dinosaurs like you, too."

Littlefoot looked at Aylene with surprise.

"Really?"

"Yeah, long-necked dinosaurs as a whole would be classified as sauropods," Aylene explained, "The type of sauropod that you are is an Apatosaurus. Cera, the threehorn we met the other day, is a Triceratops because she has three horns, or rather_ will_ have three horns on her head when she's an adult."

"Adult?"

"Grown-up," Aylene giggled slightly at Littlefoot naivety. The innocence he had was rather refreshing for the girl. In a way, he was almost like a little brother.

"Wow, you sure know a lot about dinosaurs," the little longneck complimented.

"Yeah," Aylene dropped her shoulders, frowned, and rolled her eyes as she realized that she was spouting out information again, "That's how I got the nickname "Dino Nerd" back in my world."

Aylene raised the bottle of water to her lips to drink again when Littlefoot asked the most awkward question that he had yet to throw at her.

"So, do you have dinosaurs back where you come from?"

Upon hearing the question, Aylene's eyes widened in shock. Then to Littlefoot's surprise, she spat (more like sprayed) the water back out of her mouth and onto the ground. He backed away at the action. Aylene coughed for a moment as the sudden reaction caused her to choke. When she regained control of her breathing, she looked at Littlefoot with a slightly disturbed expression.

"Uh, um, what was the question again?" She asked nervously, still clearing her throat.

"I asked if you had dinosaurs back in your world," Littlefoot repeated tentatively.

"Uh…well…"

Aylene was at a loss for words. How was she going to tell this little Apatosaurus, who has already witnessed a death, that all dinosaurs in her world are EXTINICT!? And just when they got their spirits back up! There was absolutely no way she could say that calmly or passively since it was a big thing from a dinosaur perspective!

Fortunately, she didn't have to worry about explaining because at that moment Littlefoot looked up and saw something on their side of the ravine just a few yards away.

"CERA!"

Littlefoot raced toward the lost triceratops with Aylene running behind, relieved that Cera appeared just in time. Cera on the other hand, wasn't too happy to see them. As soon as Littlefoot approached, she gave a sourpuss face and grunted.

"What do you want?"

"Uh, nothing," Littlefoot back away slightly, sensing her foul mood. "Where are you going?"

"I'M going to find my OWN kind," Cera stuck her horn up in the air, "Their on the other side."

"But we already looked all over here," Aylene explained as she caught up to them, "You can't climb up to the other side."

"Maybe YOU can't!" Cera tried to get in Aylene's face, but Aylene's height compared to Cera's gave her the advantage over the threehorn since she only came up just a little past Aylene's waist.

Cera jumped down on a small ledged just about a foot down from where they were standing that sloped down into the canyon.

"Wait, we're going to the Great Valley," Littlefoot explained, "You could come with us. We could help each other."

Cera glared at the idea.

"A threehorn does not need help from a longneck,"

She stuck her horn up in the air again and kicked up some dirt into Littlefoot's face. However, the act of defiance backfired on her and she missed her footing. She slid down the ramp into the darker pit below. Littlefoot and Aylene watched as Cera screamed and nearly disappeared into the darkness of the cavern. However, Aylene felt nauseous and dizzy as her fear of heights took over and she quickly backed away.

"Well," Littlefoot called to Cera, "At least we wouldn't be alone!"

Cera, feeling a dent in her pride, got up and looked angrily up at Littlefoot, even though he could barely see her face.

"Well, when I find my family I won't BE alone!" She shouted, "So go away!"

Cera raised her horn and tail high in the air and began to pompously walk down through the ravine as she continued her little "superiority" speech.

"Threehorns can be very dangerous. And they only TALK with other threehorns. And they only TRAVEL with other THREEHORNS!"

Littlefoot sighed and turned back to Aylene, who was now sitting down trying to calm herself down.

"Are you THAT scared of heights?"

Aylene just looked at Littlefoot with a pitiful expression.

Eventually, Aylene got to her feet and the two made walked away from the gorge. Aylene looked back and thought of Cera. Something about that triceratops made the human girl feel rather sympathetic toward her. Sure, she was brash, headstrong, and if Aylene was pressed on the matter, admittedly she thought Cera was rather bratty. But while Aylene at least had Littlefoot for company, Cera had no one. Aylene got the impression that Cera was indeed afraid, but was just too proud to admit it.

As they continued, Aylene felt her energy draining. For a while she struggled to hide her agony, but as they past a large boulder, she couldn't help but stop and lean against it.

"Aylene?"

Aylene slid down the rock and sat down, nearly worn out. He legs and feet ached, sweat ran down her face, and her stomach growled with hunger.

"Aylene, are you okay?" Littlefoot lowered his head to her level.

"I'm fine," Aylene lied. "Just needed to sit down for a minute. Let's keep moving."

Aylene tried using the rock to hoist herself up, but the moment she took a step forward, her legs gave way. As she fell, Littlefoot stuck out his neck and caught her.

"Sorry," the girl grunted, "I hate being weak."

Littlefoot then turned his side to her.

"Here," he gently offered, "Get on."

Aylene nodded gratefully. Being careful to remove the leaf on his back, she climbed onto Littlefoot's back and they continued across the wasteland toward an area where a clump trees were growing on the horizon.


	9. Chapter 9: Ducky and Petrie

**Ducky and Petrie**

As high noon rolled in, Littlefoot and Aylene arrived to the trees. Although most of the vegetation was dry, there were still some leaves left on the trees. To their relief, there was fresh water flowing down from a waterfall into a pond.

"Well, I think we deserve a rest," Aylene said as she slipped off of Littlefoot's back and took off her equipment. While the longneck drank from the pond, Aylene took out the two water bottles, which were both nearly empty, and filled them up with the water running down the falls. When she was down, she screwed the caps back on and put them back in the bag.

After that, she stuck her head under the waterfall and let the water run down her, washing the sweat and dirt she had collected off of her. When she emerged from it again, she shook her head. Droplets of water flew in many directions as her hair flew in the various directions. She took the towel out of her bag and used it to quickly dry her hair. She also found a hair-pick and used it to brush out the knots in her hair. After that, she took one of her hair elastics on her wrist and tied her short hair back.

"Thank goodness my family goes camping a lot," she remarked.

"Camping?" Again, a new word and concept for Littlefoot.

Aylene looked over at Littlefoot and sighed. There was so much that she was going to have to teach him.

"Camping is when you spend time in the forest away from your home," She explained. "My family does a lot and through it I've learned how to survive in the wild such as gathering food, water, identifying plants such as poison ivy, hu…"

Aylene caught herself just in time. She shouldn't mention anything like hunting or fishing around an herbivore, especially one that has only known what it's like to be the one hunted.

"Basically, it taught me essential skills I need to survive in the wilderness," she finished.

Littlefoot laid down next to the water and began to munch on some dried leaves that were growing on a nearby bush. Not the most tasty things in the world, but at least was better than nothing. Aylene rested against his side and began to munch on a granola bar. When she finished, she threw the wrapper back into the bag and took off one sandal.

"Whoa!" Littlefoot jolted.

"What?!"

"You just took off your foot!"

Aylene laughed at the comment. Littlefoot looked confused at Aylene; what was so funny?"

"This is called a sandal," Aylene giggly explained, "This is what goes on my foot when I have to walk long distances. It helps protect my feet."

After she took off the other one, she let her feet soak in the cool water. As the two both got lost in their thoughts, Littlefoot's mind drifted back to his mother. Last night, he also had a sleep terror. Only his was seeing his mother killed all over again and then Sharptooth coming after him. It ended with Sharptooth pinning him to the ground and then bending down to take a bit out of his flesh.

"_Sharptooth is dead,"_ he told himself. But the memory of the sleep terror was unnerving.

Aylene noticed Littlefoot lower his head. Wanting to lighten the atmosphere, she grabbed her bag, rummaged around in it and pulled out her ocarina again. She played another song. The song was more like wind blowing through the trees on a warm summer's day. This song also had words to it, but it was beautiful with just the melodic tune as well. The longneck smiled slightly as the song eased his thoughts.

When Aylene finished the song, she put the ocarina away and leaned back against Littlefoot's side. Littlefoot felt a sense of comfort. He missed his mother and grandparents terribly, but at least this human was with him. Although she was still somewhat of a mystery, she was better company than being alone. The feeling of being all alone was too much for the longneck to comprehend.

"_It must be awful to be alone,"_ he thought to himself.

Aylene again noticed his frown. She began to think of ways to cheer Littlefoot up when she felt his side vibrate and heard a deep growl in his stomach. That's when an idea struck her and she smiled mischievously.

The next thing Littlefoot knew, he felt five little claw-like things tickle his belly. He jolted up and yelped. Aylene giggled at his reaction.

"Hey, what was that for?" the longneck said, slightly irritated by the sudden shock.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," Aylene snickered.

Littlefoot's frown turned into a smile and he also laughed. He had to admit that it was pretty funny. But the laughing was soon replaced by Aylene screaming. She jolted her feet out of the water, creating a huge splash.

"SOMETHING'S GOT ME!"

A large green object was attached to Aylene's right foot and flew off as she jerked it away. It fell onto the ground just in front of the two of them and Aylene saw that it was a small Saruolophus.

"Ow, that hurt," it groaned in a cute little girl voice as it rubbed its head.

She opened her eyes to reveal bright blue irises. Both Littlefoot and Aylene stared at the swimmer with Aylene trying to calm down after that rather nasty shock.

"Oh, hello," She said cheerfully when she saw them.

"Hi," Littlefoot replied, "Who are you?"

"My name's Ducky, yep, yep, yep!" She jumped up happily. "I'm a swimmer."

"Yeah, I gathered that," Aylene rubbed her right foot.

"Sorry about that," Ducky sheepishly said. "I thought that was a strange rock or something."

"That's okay," Aylene shrugged.

"Who are you two?" Ducky asked.

"My name's Littlefoot and this is Aylene," Littlefoot replied.

Ducky looked at Littlefoot and Aylene with an inquisitive expression.

"I know you're a longneck," she pointed at Littlefoot, "but what are you?" She asked turning to Aylene.

"I'm a human," Aylene explained.

"Well it's nice to meet you Littlefoot and Aylene, it is, it is!"

Littlefoot and Aylene smiled at the little swimmer's cheerfully energy.

"So, do you live around here?" Littlefoot asked.

Ducky's smile quickly faded and she looked away.

"No," she replied, "I'm all alone, I am. I lost my family in the great earthshake."

She sniffled as the other two looked at each other with shared sympathy. Looks like they weren't the only ones separated from their families. Aylene bent down toward Ducky and gently smiled.

"Hey, Littlefoot and I are going to the Great Valley, do you want to come with us?"

Ducky gave a huge smile and jumped right into Aylene's arms.

"Yes, yes, yes!" She replied happily as she hugged Aylene, "I do, I do!"

"Well then, we better get moving." Littlefoot said.

"Just let me get my sandals back on," Aylene put Ducky down, dried her feet, strapped her sandals back on her feet, put the towel back in her bag, strapped her quiver back around her waist, threw her bag back on her back and grabbed her bow.

With that, the trio set out together. The sun continued to burn down on them as they made their way through the forest. Although plant life was pretty low, there were still tall trees with large roots coming up out of the ground. Small gaps of land were cracked as the sun dried the stone.

"Do you think my family went to the Great Valley, too?" Ducky asked as they walked on.

"Hmm, maybe," Littlefoot said, "My mother said it's where all the herds were going,"

"Oh, I hope, I hope,"

Aylene started to sense the moral of the group dropping again. Strangely, this triggered a memory of her brother. One time when she was sad, he pulled her out of her room and took her outside to play hopscotch. Looking at the cracked rocks below, they reminded her of cracks in cement back home. Another idea came into her head.

"Hey, let's play a game!"

"What kind of a game?" Ducky asked.

Aylene began to hop with one foot on separate pieces of rock, her feet alternating with each hop.

"It's called, "Don't Step On a Crack"," she explained. "You have to avoid the cracks in the ground, like this!"

Aylene repeated the steps. Littlefoot and Ducky joined in.

"Hey, this is kinda fun," Littlefoot chuckled.

Ducky meanwhile was singing a little random ditty.

"Don't step on a crack or you'll fall and break your back!" Aylene chanted.

Ducky laughed at the joke and the three continued to hop over the cracks. As they approached something that appeared to be a fern tree, they stopped as their stomachs simultaneously growled.

"Oh, gosh," Aylene shriveled with embarrassment. "That was weird,"

Littlefoot looked up at the low branches of the fern tree.

"I wonder what this tastes like?"

As Littlefoot clamped down on the branch and pulled, there was a sudden screech.

"The tree is talking!" Ducky gasped.

"No, it isn't!" Littlefoot mumbled as he continued to pull on the branch.

"You should not eat talking trees, nope, nope, nope!" the swimmer warned.

Littlefoot tugged harder and something dark fell out of the tree, screeching. It slid down the vine right into Littlefoot's face. The longneck screamed, releasing hold of the vine and it snapped back, throwing the little thing away. Ducky screamed and ran under Littlefoot, clutching his foreleg. The thing continued to cry until it hit the ground, breaking through one of the rock.

Aylene carefully ran over to the spot and looked inside the rock. She saw a small, brown Pteranodon with rather big eyes shivering with fear. When he saw Aylene, he cowered away.

"Don't be afraid, we won't hurt you," she kindly said. "What's your name?"

"M-M-My name Petrie," he stuttered.

From outside, Ducky laughed as she and Littlefoot gathered around the hole. Petrie hopped out and looked around at the three strangers.

"Petrie huh," Ducky giggled, "Funny name."

"I-I-I flied," Petrie eagerly asked.

"No," Ducky replied, "you falled."

"I falled!?" the little flyer whimpered as he fell to the ground in despair.

"You cannot fly?" Ducky asked, "But how did you get way up there?"

"I climb!" Petrie flapped his wings like a mime showing a climbing method.

"But you are a flyer," Littlefoot pointed out, "Not a faller."

"Hard thing to fly," Petrie said as he tried to leap off the ground. However, Aylene caught notice of his panic as he flapped his wings.

"I guess it is," Littlefoot slightly laughed, "We can't do it."

"Nope," Ducky giggled, "We cannot do that alright."

Aylene smiled at Petrie, "Hey, we're on our way to the Great Valley, do you want to come with us?"

Petrie looked up at the human. All Aylene need was a small nod. With that, she gently picked Petrie up and let him perch on her shoulder.

"I'm Aylene, by the way," She said, "These are my friends Littlefoot and Ducky."

The group continued walking with Aylene and Petrie lingering behind a little ways. Making sure the other two wouldn't hear; Aylene confronted Petrie about what she caught during his demonstration.

"Petrie, you're afraid of flying, aren't you?"

"What!?" Petrie yelped, "No! Me flyer, me meant to fly! Me just…don't like high places."

Petrie looked away in shame.

"That's okay," Aylene gently replied, "you see, I'm afraid of heights, too. But maybe we could help each other."

"How?" Petrie asked.

"Let's just say that I think we'll have to overcome our fears before all is said and done."

"Aylene, Petrie, you guys alright?!" Littlefoot called from up ahead.

"Don't worry, Littlefoot," Aylene called back as she ran to catch up, "We're fine."

The group continued walking toward the west. As Aylene looked back, she began to wonder what was happening to Cera right now.


	10. Chapter 10: Terror Awakened

**Terror Awakened**

A few hours before, Cera was continuing her journey down gorge. Not long after she left Littlefoot and Aylene, she found herself wandering into a cavern. Small peaks of light broke through the cracks in the ceiling, giving just enough light to see around the inside of the cave. The little threehorn walked along the ledge sticking out of the wall.

For a while, all she could think about was her bitterness toward Littlefoot and Aylene. Littlefoot acting like he's such a goody-goody and Aylene acting like a know-it-all was enough to make her walk away in a huff.

"What makes them so special anyway?" She mumbled angrily to herself. "I can find my own way to the Great Valley all ON my own!"

As she walked down the cavern, she came to a dead end in the ledge. Looking over to her left, she saw something dark and leapt onto it. It was stable and that was good enough for her. She looked around her surrounds as the shafts of light cast ominous shadows around the walls and pointed rocks from the roof of the cavern. Fear slowly began to creep in as she stepped back. She missed her footing and tumbled down the thing. When she landed on a small pathway at the bottom, she looked up in time to see the light cast on the thing.

Sharptooth!

She screamed and quickly ran behind a large boulder. She shivered as she waited for the behemoth to attack. But strangely, nothing happened. She cautiously peeked around the boulder. Sharptooth was laying flat on his back, his tail draped over a pillar of rocks fallen due to the great earthshake, his small arms were sticking up in the air like tree branches on a fallen log, but more importantly and to the little threehorn's relief, he wasn't moving.

Cera, now feeling bold, walked up to the carnivore's body. Still, it didn't move. Now being brash, she stuck out her tongue tauntingly. Then she repeatedly began ramming into his head.

"Not so tough now, are ya?" She provoked.

Feeling overly confident, she ran a ways back and got ready to charge, scraping her feet on the floor. She rushed forward and was about to hit him with full force. That's when she got a terrible shock.

Sharptooth's right eye _open_!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sharptooth heard the scream. But since it was on his right he could not see what it was. He felt a horrible sting with the screaming thing lightly touched his eye. He heard it scramble away as he slowly got up. He got to his feet and sniffed the air.

That scent was from the little threehorn he encountered the other day. However, by the time he was up, the scent was so distant now that he would have hard time catching up with it. Not just by the head start the threehorn had, but also by the limited space Sharptooth had to deal with. It would take at least a couple of hours for him to get out of the cavern due to his size and the state of the cavern. On reckless move and he could cause a cave in.

Carefully, he began to make his way out of the cavern.

Smelling that threehorn's scent stirred up memories of what happened last night. Sharptooth snarled as he thought of that insolent little longneck. Just when he had it in reach of his jaw, it was the one that injured him! The memory of that human girl returned as well. SHE was the one who cut the vine, and she did it to save the longneck! Right now, he didn't care where she came from or who she was; all he knew was that she got in his way!

Sharptooth did manage to give a morbid grin as he thought of that runt's mother. He knew perfectly well that he inflicted enough damage that the elder would've died by now. The longneck hatchling was now orphaned, alone, and unprotected. Sure, that girl had what the legends said humans called a "weapon", but she was small, even smaller than the longneck. She was just skin and bone compared to the runt. Not to mention he could sense her fear during the encounter. Surely she would never be able to stand up to him, the one who gave carnivores their name of "sharpteeth".

After a few hours, Sharptooth emerged from the gorge. The bright circle was high in the sky and clouds floated across the sky. Sharptooth sniffed the air and caught the scent of the threehorn again. But what pleased him the most was that he also caught the scent of the longneck and human. The threehorn must've found a way out of the caverns and ran away out of fear. However, whether intentionally or not, she ran in the SAME direction where the longneck and human were heading.

Sharptooth could catch up to them with no problem. He was ready for revenge, for blood, the blood of the ones who dared to injure him.

He would go after the longneck first, his initial prey. Besides, that runt was the reason he lost the vision in his right eye in the first place. That hatchling would pay a heavy price. And he wasn't going to make his end swift; he wanted to see the longneck suffer. He would make sure that his end would be slow, frightening, and painful.

Next he would pick off the human girl. Knowing that seeing the longneck suffer would pain her, he decided that he would make her ending a quick one. Just a quick chomp of the jaws and she would be done for. His mouth began to water as he thought of what human flesh would taste like.

With that, the monster set out toward the west, toward his prey.


	11. Chapter 11: True or False

**True or False**

"_I'm running out of granola bars,"_ Aylene thought to herself as she looked inside her bag. The group stopped again to take a little lunch break. Well, as much of a lunch as they could forage. Aylene had another granola bar, which now left with only two bars in her bag. She sighed as she realized that unless she could find another source of food, she would starve. On top of that, she was starting to find the taste of granola to become very stale very fast.

Littlefoot began to take notice of Aylene's behavior. It never occurred to him until now that he had not once seen her eating treestars or any other kind of thing of that nature. She would just pull one of those things she called a granola bar out of her bag and munch on that. However, the way she paused and looked in her bag made him feel uneasy. She looked mildly distressed.

"Is everything okay, Aylene?" He asked.

"Huh," Aylene looked up at the longneck, "Oh, yeah. Don't worry."

At that moment, the group heard a snarl.

"What was that?" Petrie shivered.

"Over here," Littlefoot whispered and moved into the shadow of a large tree root. The others followed. Aylene took her bow off her shoulder and strung an arrow. Crouching in the shadows, she was prepared to shoot down the source of the snarl if it should happen to attack them.

From the other side of the root, a large Dimetrodon walked by. It growled for a moment as it stopped close to their hiding place. But suddenly, as if disinterested with the area, it slowly crawled away.

Aylene peeked around the root, jaw dropped and eyes wide. A Dimetrodon?! Those things didn't even _exist_ when the dinosaurs were around! That thing came sometime _before_! So what was it doing here among dinosaurs?!

Slowly, the human began connecting the dots: dinosaurs from different eras coexisting in one, the knowledge they have of humans and Time Stones, other species from different times even before their time…

She wasn't back in time at all; she was in a WHOLE OTHER DIMENSION!

As if suddenly snapping back to reality, she glanced around as the Dimetrodon disappeared over a small slope.

"Coast is clear," she said, still keeping her voice low, "Let's go."

As they walked along the path westward, the sunlight burned down through the tree branches and created jagged shadows that made one think of claws. Dead leaves crunched under their feet and they had to watch out for small roots that jutted out of the ground. Once or twice, they nearly tripped on some that were hidden under the leaves.

Petrie, being very skittish, jumped at nearly every little noise. When Aylene stepped on a twig and made it snap, he nearly had a panic attack, rushed up Littlefoot's back and onto his head.

"Ow!" Littlefoot winced as Petrie's little feet griped his nose. "Hey, Petrie, get off!"

Instead, Petrie shivered under the treestar that gracefully landed on him.

"Petrie, it's okay," Aylene assured as she careful lifted him off of the longnecks head and let him perch on her shoulder again. Petrie then grabbed her hair and wrapped himself in it.

"Ow," She yelped, "watch it, that's my hair!"

"Oh, sorry," Petrie sheepishly untangled himself. "But we all alone, what if sharpteeth attack us."

Down at Littlefoot's feet, Ducky shuddered.

"Oh yes, what if sharpteeth attack us,"

"Guys, don't worry," Littlefoot said, sounding more annoyed than assuring, "We'll be fine."

Still, the mention of "sharpteeth" (which Aylene assumed to be what they call carnivores) made the human remember how she just watched Littlefoot's mother get hurt. She didn't want to make the same mistake again, but she hadn't practiced her archery in a long time. If anyone was going to be doing the protecting it was her. She had to do it right.

Looking around, she could see that the three dinosaurs were nervous. Littlefoot did try to hide it, but there was still somewhat of a visible shudder in his speech.

That's when Aylene got another idea.

"You know," she suddenly said, "I could use some practice in archery. Littlefoot, do you think you could help me with something?"

"Like what?"

"Well, I've yet to practice archery while riding on something. And that could come in handy later. Do you think you could help me out with that?"

Littlefoot at first looked confused. Then catching onto what she was saying, nodded. He turned his side toward her and she climbed on. She then lifted Ducky up and got her bow ready.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Petrie stuttered.

"You ready?" Littlefoot asked.

"Go for it!" Aylene responded.

With that, the longneck set off running. Petrie shrieked and clutched Aylene's shoulder. The sound of the Pteranodon's cry made Aylene cringe for a moment and cup her hand over her ear. Meanwhile, Ducky found the ride to be enjoyable.

When Aylene regained her concentration, as well as her stability on the racing Apatosaurus, she drew back an arrow, trying to steady her shot. When she took aim at a tree, she released the arrow. She could only hear the zip and thunk before drawing another and taking aim. Ducky and Petrie, who had never seen Aylene in action before, were amazed by her ability to do this foreign skill.

She continued to release arrows four more times before Littlefoot skidded to a stop.

"Well, how was that?" He panted.

Aylene ran back to retrieve her arrows. She dropped her shoulders when she saw that her first one wasn't even close to her target. The shots gradually got better, and at least all of them it the trees she aimed at, but still, she expected to do a little better than the results she got. When she got back to the group, she had a look of disappointment.

"Let's just say I still have a lot of practicing to do," She said flatly.

"Well, then let's keep trying, yep, yep, yep!" Ducky encouraged.

"I up for it!" Petrie responded happily.

"I'll be willing to give another go," Littlefoot said.

Aylene smiled at the support these three gave her and mounted back onto Littlefoot.

"I won't run as fast this time, okay," the longneck suggested.

"Okay," Aylene replied, "Just don't run too slow or there's not challenge in it."

With that, Littlefoot set off running in the direction they came from at a slightly slower speed. Aylene took careful aim at the trees as they passed by. But before she could fire her first shot, the group heard a scream. Littlefoot stopped dead in his tracks, almost lunging the other three off his back, as they saw a yellow object quickly approaching them.

"Cera?!" Aylene yelped as she saw the little Triceratops racing toward them.

Cera ran fast and hard, looking over her shoulder, obviously terrified. When she heard her name called, she turned to look ahead and stopped. Seeing Littlefoot and Aylene again was the last thing she wanted right now. She panted and hardened her face.

"Cera, it's you!" Littlefoot said, becoming concerned as to why she was so scared before. "What happened? Why are you so frightened?"

Cera scowled and got in Littlefoot's face.

"Frightened, ME?" She scoffed, suddenly sounding confident. She mockingly laughed as she pushed past Littlefoot.

"Well, yeah," Aylene shrugged as she, Ducky and Petrie slipped off the longneck's back. "You were running like you had seen a ghost or something."

Cera looked back and glared at the human.

"Why were YOU guys running?" she retorted.

"We were helping Aylene practice her archery," Ducky explained. "We weren't frightened, nope, nope, nope."

"Well you should be!" Cera snapped. Then almost immediately, her face discreetly changed to slightly mischievously. "I could be with the other threehorns but I chose to come back to warn YOU." The threehorn grinned and dramatically said, "I…met…the Sharptooth!"

"SHARPTOOTH!" Petrie screamed, leapt up, and clutched Littlefoot's neck.

Ducky gasped and rushed to hide under a thick slap of wood. Aylene had a nasty shock with the memory of her nightmare flashed in her mind. She didn't know much about the behemoth, but just his name struck fear into her.

"C'mon Cera," Littlefoot countered, "Sharptooth is dead. He fell down into the big underground."

"And THAT'S…where he met me!" Cera brashly replied, trying to sound brave.

"Oh, dear, brave Cera," Ducky said, admired by Cera's story.

"Dear, brave Cera," Petrie replied.

Littlefoot glared at Petrie while Aylene analyzed Cera's story. She could tell right off the bat that the Triceratops was fabricating the story by making herself sound brave. But Aylene clearly remembered that Cera was terrified during their last encounter with Sharptooth, just like when she was sprinting toward them just a few moments ago.

"Yes," Cera swelled with pride, "I am brave."

"Sharptooth is DEAD!" Littlefoot scowled.

"Hey!" Aylene spoke up, getting everyone's attention. "Look, I know that Sharptooth is a giant T-Rex, but what is it exactly that makes him so dangerous? What makes him so well known compared to other…uh…"sharpteeth" as you call them?"

The dinosaurs looked at each other. Aside from Littlefoot, who knew that Aylene was from a different world, the others were confused as to why Aylene had never heard of Sharptooth.

Finally, Littlefoot sighed and began to explain the story.

"Sharptooth was the most feared among sharpteeth because he was the most ruthless, cunning, and powerful in strength. Some call him the "Walking Terror". No one knows where he came from or how he came to be so powerful. All they know is that he was dangerous. Another thing that set him apart from others is that he almost always goes after one kind of dinosaur."

Littlefoot stopped and looked away.

"And what would that species be?" Aylene tentatively asked.

"Longnecks," Littlefoot mumbled.

Aylene fearfully bit her lip at the statement.

"One thing's for sure," Littlefoot continued, "once he had chosen a single leaf-eater, or even a herd for that matter, as his prey, they never survive."

"But…we did," Aylene pointed out, still unnerved by the story.

Petrie and Ducky gasped as Aylene spoke.

"You survived an attack from Sharptooth?!" Ducky said as she leapt onto the end of the slap she was hiding under.

Cera smugly leapt over Ducky and onto the wood and started to boast again.

"Yes, we did," She continued in a prideful voice. "And after a little lesson I taught him back there in the underground, he'll…"

"Okay, now I know your making that up," Aylene stated.

Cera, looking insulted, whipped around to Aylene who was standing near the end of the wooden board. Littlefoot looked at Aylene like she had just said a swear word. NO ONE would ever tell a threehorn that it was lying unless they had a death wish.

"Are you calling me a liar?!" Cera growled.

"I didn't say that," Aylene said, slightly taking a step back. "All I said that you're fabricating part of your story."

Cera scowled harder at the human.

"I don't deny that you found Sharptooth," Aylene explained. "In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you did. But considering how small you are compared to Sharptooth, I can't honestly say that I believe you when you say you stood up to him."

Cera started to fume in rage. This creature dared to have the nerve to tell her off?! Littlefoot's eyes kept darting back and forth between Cera and Aylene. He twitched with anticipation as he realized that Cera might lunge at Aylene at any given moment. And what Aylene said next, while speaking the truth, didn't make things better.

"Besides, you didn't stand up to him before when we first encountered him. In fact, I think you were just as scared as we were."

That did it!

Cera roared in anger and lunged at Aylene. However, Littlefoot, who leapt in the way just in time, stopped her short. She landed hard on the other end of the wooden board and sent Ducky flying like a catapult launching a cannonball. Soon, everyone's attention was drawn to the little swimmer flying through the trees until she was out of sight.

Ducky sailed through the branches and headed straight for the ground. A loose vine catching her around the waist broke her fall. She flipped over once before falling to the ground.

She slowly got up and shook the dizziness out of her head. When she looked around her surroundings, the sound of an egg cracking caught her attention. Cautiously, she headed toward the sound and saw that it was coming from a clump of tall grass.


	12. Chapter 12: Spike

**Spike**

"DUCKY!"

The little swimmer didn't seem to notice the others calling for her. Her curiosity was more on the clump of tall grass.

"Hello," she smiled as she peeked through the reeds. In the center of what appeared to be a nest, was a large egg. The noise was defiantly coming from this egg, only now Ducky could hear snoring sounds.

The little swimmer jumped through the grass and examined the egg, which was abnormally large. The snoring was defiantly coming from inside the egg.

"Hello?" She walked clockwise around the egg, running her right hand over it as she did.

Suddenly, the egg jolted and the top crack. As Ducky continued to creep around it, a pair of eyes lifted the broken piece of shell slightly and watched her. When she looked up at them, they quickly ducked back into the egg.

"You should come out," Ducky happily urged as she climbed up onto the top of the egg. "You should. You are late, yes you are. Yep, yep, yep!"

Instead, the hatchling inside the egg snored and grunted, as if perfectly happy to stay inside the shell.

"Come out!" Ducky encouragingly lifted the top off, throwing it aside, and looked inside. "You are all alone, are you not scared. Huh?"

A face came out of the shell. The hatchling had green-colored skin, a relatively long snout, and purple eyes that appeared to be droopy.

When he saw Ducky, for a moment he smiled. Then he yawned and fell over on his back.

"We're going to the Great Valley," Ducky explained as she began peeling apart the rest of the egg, "You can to with us, yes you can."

When the bigmouth broke apart the last piece of the shell, the hatching's tail flipped over. Ducky managed to catch a glimpse of four dark green bumps at the end of his tail.

"You are a spiketail," She observed, "So we'll call you Spike."

Once broken free of his confinements, Spike immediately began eating the grass. Ducky stepped back and watched as the newly hatched spiketail ate the entire shelter in just five large bits. He didn't seem to care that the grass was dried out and almost withered, all he cared about was the fact it was eatable. Then, as if satisfied by his meal, Spike just laid back down and fell asleep.

"DUCKY!" Littlefoot called.

"DUCKY," Petrie's voice came immediately after, "WHERE ARE YOU!?"

The group, after fighting through fallen tree branches and overgrown vines, emerged from the trees. Aylene managed to find a large stick and used it to slice her way through the tangled vegatation.

"It's about time," Cera snorted.

"Well, I didn't see you trying to help," Aylene sneered.

"How could I when you wouldn't get out of my way?!" Cera retorted. "Seriously, you're bigger than I remembered!"

"Are you calling me fat?!" Aylene snapped.

"Of course not," Cera maliciously grinned, "for spiketail!"

The threehorn laughed at her joke while the others glared at her. While the comeback was weak, the insult itself made Aylene clench her fists. NO ONE tells a human girl in her teens that she's fat! That's one of the worst things you can say to a girl! Fortunately, Aylene couldn't take that insult seriously for one good reason.

"Really," she scowled, "Because I wouldn't be talking if I were you! I'm a twig compared to you!"

"Cut it out you guys!" Littlefoot groaned. For the past few minutes, during the whole time they were looking for Ducky, the two just argued non-stop.

"_I just hope they don't start another fight I'll have to break up,"_ Littlefoot hopefully thought to himself.

Cera stuck her horn up in the air, and then walked smack-dab into a tree with a long CRASH! Aylene snickered as she felt a grim satisfaction toward the karma. Even Littlefoot and Petrie were struggling to hold back a laugh.

"I meant to do that," Cera grumbled angrily, feeling a dent in her pride.

"Haha," Aylene sarcastically chuckled, "Serves you right."

However, karma has to go both ways.

While Aylene was too busy taunting the Triceratops, she failed to see a large object at her feet. So when she didn't lift her foot high enough, she had a nasty jolt as she tripped over the thing and fell down, nearly on her face. Shots of pain rush through her arms and chest as the gravel made hard contact with her body. Tears slightly welled up in her eyes, but not enough to make them fall.

"OW!"

From behind, Cera burst out laughing as the score became even. Aylene just lifted herself back up and glared at the Triceratops, wiping the dirt and pebbles off her skin.

"Are you okay, Aylene?" Littlefoot asked as he rushed over to her.

"I'm fine," Aylene mumbled as she wiped the dirt from her mouth. She checked to see if her bow had broken. To her relief, it remained intact, but her arrows had fallen out of her quiver and sprawled across the ground. She grumbled to herself as she picked them up and assertively shoved them back into her quiver.

"Aylene," Ducky moaned as she walked up to Aylene, "you just tripped over Spike! Yes, you did!"

"Spike?"

"The spiketail," Ducky pointed to the thing she tripped over.

Aylene looked over her shoulder and saw a Stegosaurus hatchling. Due to Aylene's clumsiness, it awoke from its slumber and was now staring at her.

Everyone looked at the little Stegosaurus, who was looking happily back at them. At least they assumed he was happy. His expression was rather…dreamy. As if he was off in his only little world. Aylene wondered if she looked like that whenever she was daydreaming. At least, it reminded her of the descriptions Derek told her when he teased about her staring off into space.

"Where'd he come from?" Cera wrinkled her face.

"He just hatched. He did, he did," Ducky explained. " I told him he could come to the Great Valley with us."

"Oh, no!" the Triceratops immediately objected.

"Why not?" Petrie asked.

"It's bad enough that I'm stuck with a longneck, a swimmer, a flyer, AND a human," Cera turned away rebelliously, "There is no way I'm traveling with a spiketail as well! Besides, he just hatched; he'll only slow us down! Not to mention it's one more mouth to feed and who knows when we're going to find food again!"

"Cera, that's not fair!" Littlefoot protested.

"I just find it to be unnatural," Cera rebuked, "My father told me that threehorns never do anything with other herds."

"He's coming with us!" Aylene said firmly.

Cera turned around and glared at her.

"And I'm personally getting sick of your attitude," She snapped. "You think you're so smart and know everything! Well, guess what? You don't!"

Aylene clenched her fists for a moment, but then suddenly relaxed.

"You're right," she responded, " I don't know everything. But this much I do know: we're a herd now whether you like it or not, and no one in our herd gets left behind!"

For a few seconds, the two just glared at each other as if they were having an intense staring contest. Finally, Cera huffed, grumbled something under her breath, and turned away rather sourly.

Littlefoot looked at Spike and began trying to figure out how to get the spiketail to follow them. By the looks of him, he didn't seem too interested in walking anywhere. He was also rather big for a hatchling. He was almost as big as Littlefoot himself. There was no way any of them would be able to carry him.

Suddenly, a small memory of a family of flyers came back to him. He remember one time when his family stopped to rest, he saw a group of little flyers fighting over a sweet bubble. Whenever one would get it, the others immediately went after the one who claimed possession of it. It ended with a scalely-landcrawler grabbing it with its tongue and eating it. But then the little flyers' mother came and gave them each a sweet bubble she had gathered before hand.

As Littlefoot thought of this, he realized that they only followed the one with the sweet bubble because it was the thing they wanted the most. Maybe that trick would work here, too.

Much to their luck, a patch of a few sweet bubbles was growing nearby.

"Guys," He said, "I have an idea."

Littlefoot ran over and pick some sweet bubbles off. Wanting to be sure that Spike would even like the sweet bubbles, he dangled them in front of the spiketail's nose. Spike looked at the sweet bubbles, smiled happily at the sight of food and immediately ate them right off the branch.

Littlefoot, excited by the positive results, ran back to the bush and snapped off another branch. This time he handed it to Ducky.

"Huh?" Ducky wondered what the longneck was doing.

"Ducky, you ride on me and use these to lure Spike along," Littlefoot explained, "He likes the sweet bubbles, so we can use them to get him follow us."

"Sweet bubb…" Aylene started when she caught on what they were saying, "Oh, you mean berries."

"Yeah, what you said," Littlefoot acknowledged her word choice. By now, he was getting used to Aylene using different words to say the same things.

"That great idea!" Petrie exclaimed happily.

""That great idea"." Cera mockingly repeated in a whisper. "Please,"

Ducky immediately got on then end of Littlefoot's tail and dangled the berries in front of Spike's nose again. As Spike reached to eat them, Littlefoot started walking. Just as they had hoped, Spike got up from his spot and began following the bouncing berries.

"Very clever, Littlefoot," Aylene smiled and patted his head.

"It was nothing," the longneck grinned.

Aylene laughed slightly.

With the problem solved, the group set out once again to the west. The sun, while still high in the sky, was slowly reaching the horizon. Soon, it would set.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sharptooth growled in frustration. The path that the little runts took was too overgrown for him to maneuver through. It was fine for them, they were small enough, but for a behemoth like him, he would get tangled up before he even got four yards into the forest. This means that he will have to go all the way around the grove. That in turn would mean he would have to walk all night to catch up with the runts. On top of that, the T-Rex was becoming weak with hunger.

The longneck and human would have to wait…for now.

Sharptooth crouched low in the shadows of the trees, readying to ambush the passing Dimetrodon.


	13. Chapter 13: Aylene's Confession

**Aylene's Confession**

The little herd of six continued westward. Never had there been a herd like theirs before: an Apatosaurus, a Triceratops, a Saruolophus, a Pteranodon, a Stegosaurus, and a Human. Although the converging of different species was either taboo or frowned upon, these little travelers had made it possible.

Cera walked a distance away from the group, still feeling bitter towards Aylene. That girl thought she was all that and acted so superior when she really wasn't. For one thing, she's smaller in terms a size. While she is obviously bigger than Ducky or Petrie, she is so skinny and her limbs were like gangly branches. Also, every now and then, she would have to ask Littlefoot if she could ride on his back for a while, giving the threehorn the hunch that Aylene couldn't walk long distances for very long.

What irritated her the most was the fact that whenever they would say something, most of the time, Aylene would correct their words with another kind of word of her own. While the others went along with it and seemed to be excited about learning a new word and how the human spoke, Cera found it to be extremely irritating.

"_What makes her so bold to completely change the way we talk?"_ She angrily thought. _"She acts like she's so smart, brave and strong. I bet she's just trying to hide the truth that she's actually weak."_

The sun was almost down when the group stopped by a large river near a waterfall to get a drink and to eat from a nearby tree. The sky was painted in a rich, vibrant red with a slight golden tint. The moon was slowly creeping into visibility, just lightly blending in with the heavens.

Aylene opened her bag to put away the refilled water bottles and found to her dismay that she was out of granola bars. All that was left of them were a couple of wrinkled up wrappers. And even then, they didn't do much with keeping her stamina up; they just gave her a quick boast of energy. The only reason she was able to survive on little was because she has a low metabolism.

"_Oh, terrific,"_ she groaned to herself as she visibly frowned. _"Now what am I going to do?"_

As if an answer to her question, Aylene looked into the river and saw a bunch of fish that looked vaguely like salmon swimming around. Aylene smiled a little. Salmon was her favorite type of fish. Well, at least she wouldn't starve.

However, her relief from seeing another source of food was suddenly crashed when she heard Littlefoot trying to encourage Petrie to fly up the tree and get some leaves for them to eat and the little flyer refusing in a panic-stricken manner. Aylene whipped her head around to see the others, except for Cera, gathering around a small tree that had a source of vegetation.

"Aw, do not worry Petrie," Ducky said reassuringly, "Many things can't fly: rocks, trees, spike…"

Aylene looked away and bit her lip. It never accrued to her that she would have to eat meat in this world. She just HAD to become friends with a bunch of plant-eaters who despise anything that eats meat! But Aylene knew that she had to eat meat because of her dietary needs. She was an omnivore; meat was part of her diet if she wanted to get any protein. Peanuts would work, too, if she HAD any peanuts. And if there were any fruit or vegetables around, she would eat that instead. But at the moment all there was leafs and fish.

"Hey, Aylene!" Littlefoot called out, making her jump a little.

Aylene turned sharply around with a start. Littlefoot became confused as to why Aylene was suddenly so nervous.

"Are you okay, Aylene?" He asked.

"Yeah," Aylene answered as she put down her bag and walked over to the group, rubbing her arm as she did. "What's going on?"

"We're trying to figure out how to get the green fo…I mean, leafs down from the tree," Littlefoot quickly corrected himself. Ever since Aylene started sharing her vocabulary with them, he felt it only respectful to use her choice of words when around her since she was kind enough to acknowledge theirs. "We were thinking about stacking on top of each other but Petrie just doesn't want to go up."

Aylene looked down at the little Pteranodon shivering behind Littlefoot's left foreleg. Aylene could relate to his fear, and it didn't feel right to force him to do something he didn't want to do. She knew that it's not easy for anyone to face his or her own fears. She then looked back up at the tree. It didn't look too high, but Petrie's fear of any place high up was so severe that he wasn't going to go up there willingly.

Then it struck Aylene like a lightening bolt, she's the eldest of the group, and she should start acting like it!

"I'll climb up," she stated.

"What?" Littlefoot said with confusion, "But Aylene…"

"I can climb trees," Aylene admitted, "I have the muscle as well as the flexibility to do so."

"But you said so yourself you're afraid of heights," Littlefoot reminded her.

"Well," Aylene shrugged, "Gotta face my fear sooner or later."

Aylene walked over to the tree, looked up to the leaves on the top, and gulped.

"Uh," she nervously said, "just promise me that if I fall, you'll catch me, okay?"

"No problem," Ducky replied. "Just do your best! Yep, yep, yep!"

With that, Aylene took a deep breath and began to climb up the tree.

Fortunately, the truck of the tree was rough enough and had thick pieces of bark sticking out that Aylene could get a good grip and foothold. She tried to imagine this was like climbing the rope in gym class. But that didn't help either because she always failed at that task due to her fear.

"_No!"_ She scolded herself. _"Don't think about that right now! Just focus on the goal at hand! Just don't look down!"_

The others below watched in amazement as Aylene quickly scaled the small trunk. For someone who is scared of heights, she was doing a pretty good job. She was like a little ground crawler climbing up the side of a cliff.

Cera scowled at the human as she felt another dent in her pride. Again, Aylene has to be the amazing one of the team.

When Aylene got to the top, she immediately starting pulling leaves of the branch and letting them fall to the ground. He muscles started to ache as she struggled to hang on to the tree with her legs and left arm. Her pulse pounded in her ears and blood pumped through her veins. She forced herself not to think about how high up she was, but instead just continued pulling off leaves and letting them drop.

The others on the ground began to cheer for her. Well, most of them. Cera was still mad about the whole situation and Spike was too busy with catching leaves before they hit the ground and gobbling them up.

After a minute or two, Littlefoot called up to her, "Aylene, come down here, we've got enough food!"

Aylene looked down at the group. For a moment, her heart jumped when she realized just how high up she was. In her sudden panic, she lost hold of the tree. Before she knew what was happening, the ground was rushing to meet her.

"AYLENE!" Ducky and Petrie cried out as Littlefoot rushed under her falling path and caught her on his back.

"Aylene, are you okay?" He concernedly asked.

"I'm fine," Aylene panted. "Thanks for the save."

Once she regained control of herself, Aylene slowly got off of Littlefoot's back. The longneck then went over to Cera, who was on a ground just a few feet lower near another tree that also had some food.

"C'mon Cera," Littlefoot graciously invited, "We've got food."

"I can get my OWN GREEN FOOD!" she said, glaring up at Aylene as if thinking using the term she had always known would somehow irritate the human. However, Aylene didn't seem to react to it, which annoyed the Triceratops even more.

Cera then started charging and ramming into the tree, trying to get the leaves to fall down with the force of her head-butts. Littlefoot and Aylene looked at each other, then back at the leaves that Aylene had gathered for the others. The girl quietly pointed to the leaves and made a swinging motion with her arms. Littlefoot caught on to what she was saying and gathered up some leafs in his mouth while Aylene scooped up two large handfuls. On one of Cera's collisions, they threw down the leaves, as if to make look like the threehorn had knocked them down.

Cera shook her head and opened her eyes to sees fallen leaves around her. She smugly grinned and then started greedily eating. Aylene turned away, not wanting to look at a Triceratops eating with her mouth open.

"See," Cera boastfully answered, "I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, sure you can," Aylene grumbled.

"What was that?!" Cera snapped.

"Nothing." The human lied.

After that, Littlefoot and Aylene rejoined the group and the herbivores began to eat their fill as much as they could. Aylene hugged her legs as her stomach started to ache with hunger. She looked back and forth between the river and the vegetation at her feet. How was she going to explain her situation to the others?

"What's wrong, Aylene?" Littlefoot pushed some leaves over to her with his snout, "C'mon, there's plenty for you, too."

"Thanks, Littlefoot," Aylene looked at the Apatosaurus, "But…I can't eat leafs like you guys can."

At that statement, everyone, except for Spike, turned and looked at Aylene with subtle surprised expressions. From where she was, Cera suddenly became interested in what Aylene was saying.

"What you mean?" Petrie asked.

Aylene coiled up and started wring her hands in nervousness. She couldn't beat around the bush on this one; she would have to tell them the truth.

"Okay," She took a deep breath, "This time, I'm just going to come out and say it…"

Aylene hesitated before finally screwing up her courage.

"I'm an omnivore!"

Aylene flinched as she waited for the little dinosaurs to start panicking. Instead, they just stared at her with confusion.

"What's an omnivore?" Littlefoot asked.

Aylene face-palmed as she realized that this was going to be more difficult than she thought.

"Okay, uh," she stuttered. "You know how in you guys have plant eaters, which are called herbivores, and meat eaters, which are carnivores?"

The others slowly nodded, unsure of where Aylene was going with this.

"Well," she nervously continued, "let's just say I'm a hybrid between the two."

"Hybrid?" Ducky questioned.

"I'm both!"

With that confession, the dinosaurs' eyes widened and jaws dropped, as they finally understood what Aylene was trying to tell them.

"You mean you're a meat eater, too?!" Littlefoot said in shock.

Aylene dropped her gaze and hugged herself.

"Yes," She confessed.

To the human's misery, Petrie shrieked and rushed away from her. Ducky coiled back behind Spike. The only one's who didn't move were Littlefoot and Spike. Spike was too busy enjoying his meal and didn't seem have noticed Aylene's explanation at all. Littlefoot was just in a state of shock; this person who had been by his side ever since his mother was killed was meat eater like Sharptooth and his kind? She was obviously different and those granola bars she had been having weren't meat, even he could see tell that, so she couldn't be a full meat eater.

"I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG ABOUT YOU!" Cera leapt up onto the ledge and marched over to the group. Aylene started to fearfully scramble away when Littlefoot stepped in between her and the angry Cera.

"Stop it!" He ordered, "Have you all forgotten what Aylene has done for us?!"

"She's a meat eater, Littlefoot!" Cera shouted. "She even confessed herself! How do you know that she won't turn on us at any moment and decide to eat us?!"

"I'd never!" Aylene jumped to her feet, feeling a nasty stab in her chest at the accusation.

"Cera, that's not fair!" Littlefoot rebuked. "C'mon guys, Aylene has never once made a move to mean us any harm! Not to mention, she saved my life FROM Sharptooth before! And she let you join our herd! Does that sound like a bad creature to you?!"

"Well, no," Ducky admitted shyly, "But… you have to admit, none of us had ever had good experiences with meat eaters."

Aylene felt tears rise up in here eyes as the little swimmer said that.

"Ducky!" Littlefoot scolded.

"She have a point," Petrie shivered, "Meat eaters usually mean bad news for leaf eaters."

"I…I'm only HALF meat eater!" Aylene tried desperately to defend herself. "I also eat vegetation like fruits and vegetables!"

"Then why don't you just eat green food?!" Cera snarled.

"I can't!" Aylene answered, almost in tears, "Humans need meat in order to survive and get protein, just like we need fruits and vegetables! We have to balance out our dietary needs! But we can't eat leafs like you herbivores can!"

"If that's the case, then why don't you just go and join the other meat eaters of this world!" Cera said through her teeth.

"Cera!" Littlefoot shouted. "That's taking it too far! Aylene is nothing like that!"

"How do you know?!" Cera retorted, "You've only known her for a day or two! How do you know she won't turn on you at any moment?!"

"I KNOW she won't because our friend!"

"MEAT EATER'S like HER don't' have friends!"

"Stop calling her that!"

"STOP IT!"

Everyone turned to Aylene, who was now struggling to hold back the tears.

"I get it," she choked. "I can tell when I'm not wanted anymore. I'll just leave and ease your minds. At least you know the truth about me now and I don't have to keep it a secret anymore. Now you won't have to worry about me "turning on you" as well."

"No, Aylene…" Littlefoot began to protest.

"It's okay, Littlefoot," Aylene smiled at the only one who still trusted her, "It's better this way. Trust me."

With that, Aylene quickly gathered up her things and walked away.

"Aylene!" Littlefoot called for her, but the human girl ignored his pleas and just continued on her aimless path.

As she sauntered along the edge of the river, looking for a good place to fish, she took one more glance back at the group. While Cera was watching her with a scowl, and Petrie and Ducky were still looking nervous, Littlefoot looked just as sad as she was. She turned away and quietly let her tears fall. The ache in her stomach couldn't match the pain in her heart.

They may have been dinosaurs, but from the time she had spent with them, they were starting to feel almost like family. For a while, they were the only family she had in this world. Isn't that what a herd is? Isn't a herd a family? Guess not when eating habits come in as a factor. Which apparently they do in this world.

"I guess at the end of the day," She though out loud through her tears, "if I'm not an herbivore like them, I can't belong with them."

When she was out of sight of the little herbivores, she stopped, dropped to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and began to cry. For the first time in this world, she was all alone.

"Just take me home!" She sobbed; but the stone still refused to grant her wish.


	14. Chapter 14: If We Hold On Together

**If We Hold On Together**

After a decent meal of cooked fish that Aylene caught with her bow and arrow, she made her way to a giant, T-Rex shaped footprint near a dried up, broken down tree. She sat down in it and wrapped her towel around herself to try to keep warm. The sun had set and the full moon began to shine with its beautiful radiance. The sky was streaked with different shades of blue and black with the sounds of cricket like insects serenaded through the night.

Although Aylene didn't have any spices to make the fish she caught any tastier, it was at least eatable and that was good enough for her. She did have a bit of trouble of finding firewood, but again, she managed to get by. It was at least enough to cook the fish before losing the strength to burn anymore.

Even now, Aylene's thoughts continued to drift back to those little dinosaurs. Although what happened left her feeling hurt and rather upset with them, she still couldn't help but miss them. They at least gave her some company, even if she did argue with Cera almost all the time, or if Petrie's broken speech irritated her a little, or if Ducky was too cheerful at times, they still were the only thing close to family that she had.

The only one she wasn't angry with was Littlefoot. He treated her as if she was part of his family. The two probably had been through the most together, from when they first met, to Sharptooth attacking, to Littlefoot's mother's death, and then journeying to the Great Valley. He never once complained whenever she asked to ride on his back, he never doubted her, and he always stood up for her. In a way, he did become like a little brother to her.

"I wonder if Derek sees me this way sometimes," The thought crossed her mind. She wrapped her self in the blanket tighter as the memory of her brother returned to her. Sure, he did poke fun at her more often than she would like him to, but in the end he was always there for her. He always cheered her up whenever she was feeling bad.

One time, she had got to the dentist to have an extra tooth pulled out. It didn't hurt so much as it was just overwhelming and rather scary. When she came home after it was over, she was sure he would make fun of her for crying over it. Instead, he came into her room with a nice cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. The only time he laughed was when Aylene went to take a sip, but because her bottom lip was so numb, she missed it and the beverage dribbled onto the table. But Aylene could laugh at that as well because it was funny.

Tears welled up in Aylene's eyes and she shivered with cold as she realized that she took her brother for granted. Sure, he teased her a lot, but that was expected. He was her older brother; he was SUPPOSED to tease her. At the same time, he looked after her and gave her protection and comfort when she needed it. And right now, she would give anything to have him tease her again.

As she thought of this, she heard voices. They were calling out. Calling out HER name!

"AYLENE!"

"AYLENE! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"AYLENE! PLEASE ANSWER!"

Aylene whipped around and looked over the wall of dirt. Her heart leapt for joy. Just on the horizon were the five herbivore children! Her anger and sadness seemed to wash away when she saw them.

"GUYS!" She waved her hands in the air, "I'M OVER HERE!"

All of them turned in her direction. Aylene sprung out of the footprint and sprinted toward them. They also raced to meet her. When they met, Ducky and Petrie were the first to reach Aylene. She dropped to her knees and scooped them up in a hug.

"Oh, Aylene," Ducky said in both a happy and guilty tone, "We're so sorry! We are, we are!"

"Yeah," Petrie replied the same way, "We very sorry! Can you forgive us?"

Aylene smiled. "Yes, of course I can!"

Littlefoot happily ran up on the girl's right and nuzzled Aylene's face. She returned the gesture by stroking his head.

"I'm just glad that you're okay," he said.

Spike came up on Aylene's left and licked her cheek. Aylene winced at the gesture, mostly because it was a very slobbery lick. She wiped away the saliva with her hand and brushed it against the ground before patting the Stegosaurus's head.

"Buy…why did you guys come looking for me?" Aylene still tried to process what was going on.

"Littlefoot convinced us to," Ducky explained as Aylene set her and Petrie down, "And we were worried about you. Yep, yep, yep."

"Littlefoot," Aylene looked up at the Apatosaurus.

"Listen, Aylene," Littlefoot said, "You told us the truth and we should respect that. Besides, that's only a small part of you. My mother always taught to always judge someone by their character. You may be half meat-eater, but you've shown that you're brave and loyal. That's what counts the most."

A warm smile streaked across Aylene's face. That was probably one of the sweetest things anyone had ever said to her. She raised herself up a little and hugged the longneck, who responded with wrapping his neck around her.

"Thanks," she replied.

Littlefoot then looked up at Cera, who had a rather neutral face, which surprised Aylene. Normal, the Triceratops had either an angry or snobbish expression.

"Don't you have something to say, Cera?" the longneck prompted in a rather forceful tone.

Cera looked at Aylene for a moment, and then dropped her gaze as if ashamed.

"I…I'm sorry for what I said before," She simply said.

"It's okay," Aylene said tentatively. Not wanting to press the matter any further, but Cera didn't feel very seem too sincere. It was there, but very subtle. She just sounded rather embarrassed if anything.

"Well," Aylene shifted the attention away from the current subject, "It's late and we have a long day tomorrow. We should get some sleep."

The group agreed and walked back to the footprint. Aylene rolled up her towel and stuck it back in her bag. Then she moved her belongings out of the footprint to make more room, since all six of them huddled together filled up the whole thing.

"Hey, Aylene," Littlefoot asked, "You think you can play a song on your ocarina?"

"Actually," Aylene replied, "I have another idea. One of the songs my grandma taught me has words to it. It's very pretty and I think you'll like it."

Aylene took a deep breath and began to sing in a strong, sweet voice.

"_Don't lose your way_

_With each passing day_

_You've come so far_

_Don't throw it away_

_Live believing_

_Dreams are for weaving_

_Wonders are waiting to start_

_Live your story_

_Faith, hope and glory_

_Hold to the truth in your heart_

_If we hold on together_

_I know our dreams will never die_

_Dreams see us through to forever_

_Where clouds roll by_

_For you and I_

_Souls in the wind_

_Must learn how to bend_

_Seek out a star_

_Hold on to the end_

_Valley, mountain_

_There is a fountain_

_Washes our tears all away_

_Waves are swaying_

_Someone is praying_

_Please let us come home to stay_

_If we hold on together_

_I know our dreams will never die_

_Dreams see us through to forever_

_As clouds roll by_

_For you and I_

_When we are out there in the dark_

_We'll dream about the sun_

_In the dark we'll feel the light_

_Warm our hearts_

_Everyone_

_If we hold on together_

_I know our dreams will never die_

_Dreams see us through to forever_

_As high as souls can fly_

_The clouds roll by_

_For you and I"_

When Aylene was done, the other five were fast asleep. Aylene smiled as she settled down to sleep, too. As if having some strange power in it's lyrics, the song warmed everyone's souls and gave them hope again.

As she thought of her brother again, she realized that she was now in his position. She was now the older sibling. She had to be responsible for these kids. She would see this through to the end no matter what. She would help them reach the Great Valley.

Before drifting off to slumber, she whispered,

"For you and I"


	15. Chapter 15: Powerful Spirit

**Powerful Spirit**

Aylene was the first one to wake up. The sun had just risen above the eastern horizon, already dying the sky in a golden and pink color. Light clouds swept across the sky as a light breeze blew across the land.

The girl sat up and rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes. She looked around the deserted and barren plain. The only thing that showed anything lively was the large river flowing from south to north.

Aylene looked at the river for a moment and then sniffed her arm. Whoo! She seriously needed to clean up. On top of that, it wouldn't hurt to do some scouting while she was at it. Not wanting to disturb the others, she slow crept out of the footprint.

"Aylene?" A small voice said.

Aylene looked back and saw Ducky was starting to wake up.

"Shh," Aylene said, "I'm just going to scout ahead, no need to get up yet. I'll be back in a bit."

Ducky drowsily nodded and went back to sleep. Aylene quietly grabbed her things and walked down to the river. Keeping her swimsuit on but taking off her sandals and shorts, as well as slipping her hair elastic back onto her wrist, she slipped into the water and just swam around in one area, diving under the water occasionally to clean her hair.

When she was done, she climbed out and dried herself with her towel as best she could. Instead of pulling her hair back, she let it hang freely in the breeze. Then she put her sandals and shorts back on, rolled up the towel, put it in her bag, clasped her quiver around her waist, threw her bag onto her shoulders, grabbed her bow, and started toward the large rocks opposite of the rising sun.

With an arrow on the string, she carefully walked along the rock wall, keeping an eye out for any predators. In about five minutes, she came to a relatively large opening in the rocks that led out to the other side. After examining the space, she could tell that it was big enough for even Spike to fit through easily. Curious as to what was on the other side, she cautiously walked through the gap. When she came out on the other side, she looked ahead and smiled happily.

What she saw was proof that the group was heading the right way, and were nearly done with their journey!

Faintly, there was a low roar from the other side of the rocks. Aylene whipped around at the sound. Something wasn't right. Something about that roar was familiar, sending a chill down her spine. She quickly made her way through the tunnel. Before she could get out on the other side, she heard Cera scream,

"HE'LL EAT US! HE'LL EAT US! RUN!"

Aylene sprinted out and then stopped dead in her tracks. She gasped in terror as she saw the T-Rex with the swollen, blinded right eye he had received during their last encounter.

SHARPTOOTH!

He WAS alive! Cera wasn't making that part up! She was telling the TRUTH!

Aylene then snapped back to reality as Sharptooth stomped on the ground, trembling the earth. She heard her friends scream in terror and sprint away from the monster. She waved her arms like a crazy person to get their attention.

"GUYS!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, "THIS WAY! THROUGH HERE!"

Panic-stricken, the group raced toward Aylene. Cera in the lead, Spike in the middle with Ducky and Petrie riding on his back, clutching on for dear life, and Littlefoot quite a distance behind.

"DON'T LOOK BACK!" The longneck commanded. "KEEP GOING!"

Aylene stepped aside as Cera sprinted through the gap. A few seconds later, Spike raced through. Due to his size, he had to squirm around a little as well as have Cera tug on him from the other side of the opening. Aylene was about to help when she looked back to see Littlefoot running toward her with Sharptooth dangerously close behind.

"LITTLEFOOT, WATCH OUT!" She screamed.

But it was too late. The Tyrannosaurus leapt up and the next thing Littlefoot knew, he was slammed to the ground, trapped under the Sharptooth's foot! He cried out as desperately struggled to break free, but the grip was too strong. The talons of the behemoth's foot scratched his hide, making his side bleed. When he looked up, he saw the most terrifying image he had ever seen: Sharptooth's gaping jaws just inches away from him! He leaned as far away as he could; shutting his eyes tight and trembling as he waited for the doom that was closing in on him!

The memory the nightmare violently flashed in Aylene's mind. Sharptooth was almost at Littlefoot's flank, ready to bit off a piece of flesh!

"NO!"

Half mad with horror, Aylene drew back her arrow and quickly released it. The arrow cut through the air with incredible speed and struck Sharptooth in the leg pinning Littlefoot down!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sharptooth roared as sharp, stining pain stabbed his leg, penetrating skin and muscle. He leaned off of the longneck, who looked up for a moment, stunned by what had just happened, and then immediately scrabbled to his feet and bolted away. Sharptooth staggered back, pain coursed through his leg every time he put pressure on it. But with that shot, a memory of long ago sparked in his head. A memory so far in the past that even monsters like him could forget.

He remembered now! This WASN'T the first time he was shot at! This wasn't even the first time he encountered a HUMAN! The memory became clear again!

He looked at the human near the mouth of the cave and raged burned in his eye! This girl! Now that he had a better look at her, he saw that she looked exactly like HER! The one who defeated him with another longneck long ago! Was this girl the SAME ONE?!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Aylene looked up in near-paralyzing surprise. She just shot at Sharptooth! And since Littlefoot was now running toward her, she succeeded in the shot. She SAVED his life!

"I…I have a weapon…" She whispered as she looked at her bow. Strength and courage suddenly ignited in her heart and flooded through her. She stood tall and declared: "I HAVE A WEAPON!"

Aylene then drew back another arrow and released it again. The arrow zipped through the air and hit Sharptooth, this time in the side. He roared in pain as the arrow stuck in his flank.

This bought Littlefoot just enough time to meet up with the group and race through the opening. Before joining them, Aylene fired one more arrow, which hit Sharptooth in the snout.

Sharptooth fixed Aylene with a deadly scowl and lunged toward the rocks. Aylene hastily turned around and sprinted through the tunnel. Sharptooth dived for the girl and inadvertently pushed the group out on the other side. They all tumbled down the small slope, breathless and weary by the nasty shock. They looked back and saw the Sharptooth had gotten his snout stuck in the opening. The jaws snapped vainly as he struggled to break free and an arrow lodged near his left nostril.

"Now will you believe me!?" Cera panted.

"I'm sorry," Littlefoot replied, "We're safe now."

"Nobody's safe with you!" Cera shot back.

Littlefoot looked away. Then with a violent jolt, he realized his treestar was gone!

That's right; Sharptooth trampled it as they were escaping. He hung his head sadly as the last gift from his mother, the last thing that was part of a happy memory of her, was now gone. His chest ached at the pain of losing such an irreplaceable gift.

As he turned to look at Aylene though, he became concerned. She looked very shell-shocked. She trembled slightly and breathed heavily.

"Aylene?" Petrie tentatively asked, "You okay?"

"I just shot Sharptooth," Aylene stated.

Everyone looked at Aylene in admirable surprise. NO ONE who ever stood up to Sharptooth ever made it out alive. But here, Aylene, smaller than anyone who would ever take on the likes of that monster, stood up to him and got away with it!

"I did it!" Aylene turned to the group with a rather ecstatic expression, "I did it! I protected you guys! I…I saved you!"

The others shared Aylene's joy. They all huddled around her, showing their gratitude. Spike licked Aylene's cheek at least three times, Ducky and Petrie embraced her tightly, laughing with joy, and Littlefoot wrapped his neck around her.

"Okay, I admit it," Cera sighed, "You were pretty brave back there. Thanks."

Aylene smiled at Cera, this time, she felt sincere in her thanks. But then a glint of red on Littlefoot's side caught her attention. She yelped as she saw that he had three cuts in his side.

"Littlefoot, you're hurt!"

Everyone looked at Littlefoot's side. The cuts weren't deep, but they were bleeding, which disturbed nearly everyone.

"It's nothing really," He assured, although a hint of fear slipped into his voice.

"Let me look at them," Aylene ordered.

She carefully examined the wounds, "They don't look too bad, but just in case…"

She took her bag off and pulled out her towel and a water bottle.

"Hold still," She said, "This might sting a little,"

Carefully applying just enough water onto one corner of the towel, she gently rubbed over the cuts, cleaning them of any infectious bacteria as best she could.

It stung all right! Littlefoot grit his teeth and flinched as he felt the water sharply jab his wounds. He knew Aylene was trying to help, but by golly this treatment was just a little more painful than what he was expecting.

When she was done, Aylene rinsed the blood out of the towel, screwed the cap back on the water bottle, rolled the towel up, and stuffed them both back into her bag.

"Well, that should do for now," She sighed as she threw her bag back on. "On another note, you'll all be happy to know that we are almost to the Great Valley."

"What?" Littlefoot looked up, "How do you know?"

Aylene grabbed her bow and pointed to a rock with her thumb. Everyone turned and saw a large rock towering over them many feet above them. A rock in the shape of a longneck!

"It's the Great Rock that looks like a longneck," Littlefoot whispered before happily shouting, "We're going the right way! The way to the Great Valley!"

Everyone's spirits rose as they continued westward, leaving Sharptooth behind on the other side of the rocks. As they journeyed onward, Littlefoot walked beside Aylene.

"Aylene,"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for saving my life back there, I really owe you."

Aylene smiled. "I was happy to do it,"

Aylene patted Littlefoot's hand and he nudged her face.

"_You know Rooter,"_ Aylene thought as the memory of the old dinosaur came back to her, _"I think I'm starting to understand what you meant by "powerful spirit". I'll admit, it was a shocker to me, but I think I'm slowly starting to understand."_

After a about an hour of walking, the group reached a rocky ridge that seemed to reach up to the grey sky. From the base of where they were standing, small specks of ash began to gently fall from the sky, coating the ground in an imitation of dark snow. Ashes and grey skies could only mean one thing: they were close to volcanoes.

"Looks like we have to climb over," Littlefoot said.

"Well then," Aylene stepped forward and hoisted herself up onto the rock, "We better get started. C'mon."

But the climb over the ridge wasn't going to be an easy one.


	16. Chapter 16: The Insult

**The Insult**

OH, THAT LITTLE BRAT!

Sharptooth managed to pull his snout out of the hole in the wall. While the dive broke off the end of the arrows in his leg and side, about three inches of the arrows' shafts were still lodged in his skin. Warm blood slowly trickled out of the wounds and dripped onto the ground. His leg ached with every step and his side stung horribly. Soon he was limping his way around the rocks. This would severely slow him down, allowing his prey to get further and further away.

That little human girl was to blame for this! She was the one that dared to injure him, AGAIN!

On top of that, she looked so much like HER, especially in her eyes! Those eyes weren't from the same girl he first encountered in the thorn bushes. They were the eyes of that other girl who almost succeeded in killing him all those years ago! Bravery, strength, and intelligence burned bright in those blue eyes. He looked at his leg where the arrow had struck. The same leg where that other girl struck him with the exact same weapon. The arrow was very close to a scar where another one had struck long ago.

However, in all that commotion, he managed to see something: the human only attacked when the longneck was in danger, just like that other human girl from many years ago. Only differences: one was a little runt while the other was in his prime. He grinned maliciously as he realized the human's weakness!

Ignoring the pain, he continued in pursuit of them. Only this time, he wouldn't go after them directly. He knew exactly where they were going. Before they would reach their precious haven, he would lie in wait for them. Then when they least expect it, he would exact his revenge. He may have underestimated the human last time, but he wouldn't underestimate her will to protect the longneck. THAT is what will be her downfall.

After he's done with the little runts, he would then move on the Great Valley itself. Once he was done there, it would be nothing but a graveyard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Winded and exhausted, the herd of six continued up the side of the mountain range. Bits of gray ash continued to rain down from the sky and dismal clouds covered the sun. Littlefoot and Aylene were in the front, Spike, Ducky, and Petrie were in the middle, and Cera was behind.

They had been climbing the mountains for about three hours now with very small breaks. All of them were tired, their muscles ached, and their morale was starting to drop. With every step, they didn't seem to be getting any closer. They had to climb on top of rocks, jump over large gaps, and some times go out of their way to find a good place to keep a foothold because some areas were too steep.

Aylene looked behind to see the others behind her and Littlefoot had stopped. She could tell they were almost at the end of their strength. Littlefoot also looked behind to see the group. He understood that they were tired and hungry; he was the same way, too. But they were so close to the top; they couldn't give up now.

"Come on," He encouraged, "you can't quit now. What if the Great Valley is just over the top of these rocks?"

Ducky, Petrie and Spike looked up at Littlefoot with pitiful expressions while Cera looked up with an irritated expression. They all slowly got to their feet and continued up at a steady pace.

As they got higher, the wind grew stronger and soon began blowing ash and dirt all around them. Aylene coughed as she struggled to breath. Still, she continued onward. Everything she was carrying began to feel heavier, but she ignored it. She pushed herself to climb. She had just gained new confidence at the beginning of the day, and she wasn't about to let it go.

After one last hoist to the top, she stopped to catch her breath. Soon Littlefoot was beside her.

"Don't give up Aylene," He panted.

"Oh, don't think for one moment I have any intention on giving up, Littlefoot," She weakly grinned, "I'm not the helpless little girl I was when I first came here. I'm a warrior now. I know my family is probably worried about me right now, but when I get home, I at least want them to be proud."

"I bet they'll be very proud of you," Littlefoot said.

As Aylene spoke of her family, the stone around her neck flickered for just a moment before turning to dull again.

The rest of the group joined the two of them as the thick cloud of debris began to break up. All six looked over the edge, hoping to see the Great Valley below. But once the ash disappeared, their spirits severely plummeted. There was nothing below but another barren ravine.

"THIS IS YOUR GREAT VALLEY?!" Cera shouted, causing an echo through the canyon. "YOU'RE CRAZY!"

Everyone turned to Cera, who was now furious and frustrated.

"I'm leaving!" She angrily turned away.

"Cera," Aylene tried to persuade the little Triceratops, "we have to keep falling the sun westward."

"I'M taking the easy way for once!" Cera stuck her horn up in the air and began to march away.

Littlefoot, on the other hand, had enough of her attitude! He rushed out in front of her and stopped her from going on.

"But it's the wrong way!" He harshly said as he got in Cera's face.

"Who says?" Cera mocked.

"My mother!" Littlefoot shot back.

"Then SHE was the stupid longneck, too!" Cera snobbishly replied.

Aylene gasped and cupped her hand over her mouth. Cera did NOT just go there! Littlefoot was livid! NO ONE had the right to insult his mother like that!

"Take that back!" He demanded.

"Never!" Cera refused.

"TAKE IT BACK!" Littlefoot reared up angrily on his hind legs, making Cera step back.

"NO!" Cera shouted, refusing to swallow her pride.

Before the others knew what was happening, Littlefoot rammed his head into Cera, knocking the wind out of her, and the both of them went careening over the edge of the cliff!

"LITTLEFOOT! CERA!" Aylene cried as they tumbled down the steep edge. Her fear of heights didn't take over this time as she had a much bigger deal on her hands.

"Spike, no! Don't do it!"

Aylene looked over and saw that Ducky and Petrie were trying to prevent Spike from sliding down the slope after the other two. Aylene attempted to grab Spike, but she missed her footing and all four soon found themselves sliding down the steep. Surprisingly, they reached the bottom safely with just a few minor scratches and bruises. But there was no time to consider this because right before them was a furious fight.

Cera got up and charged at Littlefoot, ramming into his side. He yelped as she hit him directly on one of his scratches, making it sting. He stumbled back before getting up angrily and lunging toward her. He managed to clamp down hard on one of her forelegs with his mouth.

"LET GO OF MY LEG!" Cera painfully cried as she rammed her horn into Littlefoot's side again. He let go and cried out in pain as the horn dug right into another wound, making it break open and bleed again. They then head-butted and began to push and shove each other around.

Aylene couldn't take much more! She sprang up from her place and raced toward them!

"Aylene, come back!" Ducky cried in terror.

The other three raced behind and large rock. Spike dug his head into the ground while the others covered their eyes.

"Guys, stop it!" Aylene shouted as she got close to them. While she tried to help, she ended up making a mistake. She grabbed Cera in an attempt to hold her back.

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" The Triceratops angrily screamed and rammed her head against Aylene. The girl's bow flew off her shoulder and she smacked into a nearby rock with her side. Aylene gasped in pain as she landed on the sandy ground and her whole body racked with agony.

Littlefoot charged at Cera again, knocking her into another rock as well.

"LEAVE AYLENE ALONE!" He shouted.

Cera shot a nasty look before charging at the longneck again.

Aylene's head swam as she struggled to regain her senses. For a while, her vision was a big blur and she was hearing sounds as if she was underwater. When things started clearing up, she saw Cera knock Littlefoot down from behind.

"Guys," She weakly said. "Stop it!"

No one acknowledged her plea, but they didn't have to. Littlefoot just stayed down.

With her opponent defeated, the threehorn huffed in triumph and began to limp away. Aylene could just barely see that Cera's right leg had a bite mark and was rather swollen.

Tears of anger and pain welled up in Littlefoot's eyes as he watched Cera walk away, but he refused to let them fall.

"GO ON!" He shouted angrily as he got to his feet, "GO THE WRONG WAY! WE NEVER WANTED YOU WITH US ANYWAY!"

Aylene pressed herself up against the rock. Although it was understandable, she had never seen Littlefoot this furious before. In all honesty, it was scaring her. It wasn't just her either, the others were afraid, too.

Littlefoot walked over to Aylene, "You okay, Aylene?" He sounded more irritated rather than caring though.

"Yeah," the girl cautiously answered as she slowly got up.

"C'mon guys," Littlefoot commanded as he headed toward the other slope. "We have to keep going."

Aylene picked up her bow and was about to follow the Apatosaurus when she looked back at the others. They weren't moving. Their eyes kept darting back and forth between Cera and Littlefoot.

"C'mon, guys" Aylene gently said. "We have to keep moving."

Littlefoot turned around and looked at the group.

"Cera's way is easier," Ducky meekly said.

"I think so, too," Petrie replied.

For the first time in his life, Littlefoot felt as if he had been betrayed. He scowled at them, turned away and began to walk up the slope. Petrie leapt from his place, begging for Littlefoot to not be angry as he clumsily climbed up after him. At least that's what Aylene thought he was doing, but he was speaking so fast and panicky that she could barely make out what he was saying. It didn't matter in the end since the little flyer tumbled back down the slope and Littlefoot didn't look back.

"Cera!" Ducky called out as she, Petrie and Spike started to follow her, "Wait for us! We're coming with you, Cera!"

Littlefoot continued up the slope, not looking back until he got to the top. He turned around and saw that the others following Cera northward. He felt a nasty jab in his heart as his companions walked away. His mother was right about herds never doing anything together. They were just too different, as simple as that.

When he heard the sound of rocks shifting and tumbling, he looked over the edge and saw that Aylene was climbing up the slope toward him.

"Aylene?"

"I promised you I'd stay by your side no matter what," She panted as she reached the top, "And I always keep my promises."

Littlefoot smiled a little; at least one friend didn't turn her back on him.

The two silently began to continue westward. Aylene frequently looked back over her shoulder and worried about the others. Although she was keeping one promise, she was breaking another. She couldn't leave Littlefoot, but it felt wrong to leave the others behind. That's NOT what a herd does!

They hadn't gone more than half a mile when her mind finally made itself up. She stopped dead in her tracks and sternly said,

"Littlefoot, we have to go back."


	17. Chapter 17: Herd Means Family

**Herd Means Family**

Littlefoot whipped his head around and looked at Aylene. She didn't look mad by any means, but she did have a stubborn look on her face. And the way she was standing still made it clear that she wasn't budging on the idea.

"I know what Cera said was uncalled for and it made me angry as well," Aylene explained, "But that's not a good enough excuse to leave her or the others behind."

"We didn't leave them behind," Littlefoot rebuked, still upset about the whole situation, "They were the ones who abandoned us!"

"We ALL abandoned each other," Aylene shot back, "We all went separate ways and didn't even try to stop each other!"

"But you heard what they said!" The longneck strained not to shout. "They would rather take an easy way rather than the right way!"

"All the more reason why we should've stopped them!" the human countered. "We're basically letting them go astray!"

Contention slowly began to rise as the two continued to argue.

"You saw what happened when we tried to work together!" Littlefoot shouted, "Different herds of dinosaurs never do anything together because we CAN'T get along for a long time!"

"I'm not even a dinosaur and your herd accepted me with no problem!" Aylene angrily pointed out.

"That was different!" Littlefoot shot back in the same tone, "You were on your own and had no one!"

"They were also on their own and we took them in!" Aylene shouted. "Isn't that what a herd does?!"

"None of us were of the same species!"

"That's not what herd means! Herd means family!"

After that sentence, there was dead silence. Littlefoot's face changed from angry to surprised in a heartbeat. Something about what the human said was very profound.

"What…What did you say," He asked in a hushed voice.

"Herd means family," Aylene calmly repeated, then she added on, "And family isn't just something you're born into. It's about those you hold close to your heart. Friends are apart of your family. When you guys came back for me after I told you I was an omnivore, I realized it also means that it doesn't matter what you eat, where you come from, or what your species is, no one in a family gets left behind. And although your mother…"

Aylene hesitated for a moment; knowing she was touching on a very sensitive topic. "Although your mother is dead, she is still in you memories, meaning that no one in a family is forgotten."

Littlefoot just stared at the human.

"Cera, Petrie, Ducky, and Spike are like us: kids in trouble trying to find a place to call home," she continued, "They need us, and we need them, too. Because we ARE a herd."

Littlefoot looked away with guilt when he realized that he was just making up excuses as to why he was so angry. Aylene was absolutely right. Besides, even if his mother said that different species never did anything together, he knew she would never want him to turn his back on anyone in trouble.

"I'm sorry," He whimpered.

Aylene's face softened as she walked over to the Apatosaurus and caringly patted his head.

"It's not too late," she gently said, "We still can catch up with them."

What neither of them noticed was the stone around Aylene's neck flickering slightly brighter than before. It only lasted for a split second before dying down again.

Littlefoot looked up at the human and smiled. Then he motioned to his back.

"Then you better get on," he smirked, "We've got a lot of ground to cover and we've wasted too much time already."

Aylene grinned and hoisted herself onto his back. "Okay, Littlefoot, show me how fast you can run!"

With that, the longneck sprinted and the two headed northeast toward the volcanoes, back to their herd.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, while Littlefoot and Aylene drew closer and closer to the mountains that burn, the little herd of four were continuing to their path through the pass itself.

Melted fire flowed down the mountains like streams, making the heat oppressive. Every so often, a flaming rock would fly down into the river of fire near them. The sun was completely blocked out by the smoke and ash, leaving only the light of the fire.

"I-I wish Littlefoot and Aylene were here with us," Ducky shuddered as they passed over a land path with fire flowing below them.

"M-Me t-too," Petrie shivered behind Cera's frill.

Cera ignored them and continued to walk on. The swelling in her leg had gone down and she was walking normally again, but that bite mark from the longneck was still visible.

Spike, eyeing a small source of vegetation, suddenly stopped and started to yank it out of the ground.

"Spike, do not stop!" Ducky ordered as she jumped off of him and tried to get the plant out of his mouth. "We must stick together!"

Cera didn't seem to have noticed her comrades had fallen behind. She continued to walk on the path until she and Petrie came across a pit full of black goo. As if to add to the disturbance, there were two sets of bones in the goo that seemed to be from either bigmouths or very small longnecks.

While masking her fear, Cera walked over to a small gap where she would have to jump over to avoid the goo. As she was about to jump, the earth trembled as the smoky mountain was getting ready for another burst of fire. Petrie fell off of Cera and gripped her leg in fear. The moment it stopped, Cera jumped across the gap.

At that same moment without warning, Petrie lost his grip on her leg. He screamed as he clumsily whipped around in the air, trying to make his wings work. He fell straight down in to the black goo. He gasped for air as he struggled to get out. But he continued to sink deeper and deeper into the muck.

"CERA, I FALL OFF!" He shouted, but the threehorn didn't hear him. He panicked and thrashed violently around, screaming for help.

"AUGH, DUCKY, SPIKE, HELP!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Littlefoot and Aylene reached the volcano range, but the longneck didn't stop running. They heard the sounds of their friends calling for help and rushed to their rescue.

The closest they heard was Ducky. Littlefoot raced as hard as he could until they found Ducky and Spike and skidded to a stop. The land bridge they were on was now mostly gone and they were stranded on a single rock. The lava around it was starting to cause the small rock to sink. Soon, it would disappear under the lava, taking Ducky and Spike with it!

At the same time, they also heard Petrie calling for help not too far from where they were.

"Littlefoot," Aylene jumped off of his back, "you help Ducky and Spike, and I'll go help Petrie!"

"Okay, just be careful!"

Aylene immediately set out running to the place where Petrie's voice was coming from. Littlefoot raced down the slope until he came to the edge of the lava river.

"Littlefoot!" Ducky cried out when she saw him.

"Hang on!" The Apatosaurus said as he began to push a large, jagged, cubic rock over, making a stepping-stone for them to cross back to safety. As the rock toppled over, lava splattered up, startling Ducky. She almost fell off into the lava but Littlefoot jumped on the stone, grabbed her by the tail, and threw her onto his back.

"This way! Hurry!" He commanded.

The three made it off the rocks just in time as they sank under the river of fire.

"C'mon, we gotta find others!" Littlefoot ordered as they raced off.

Meanwhile, Aylene raced toward the tar pits. She looked in and saw Petrie. By now, he was in a state of terror and covered with tar.

"Petrie!" Aylene shouted.

"OH, AYLENE," He shouted, still thrashing violently, "AYLENE, HELP!"

"Petrie, stop moving!" Aylene ordered. "You'll only sink faster!"

Petrie didn't listen to her; he continued to thrash around in a panic. Aylene quickly took off her bow, grabbed hold of one end and stuck it out as far as she could.

"Petrie, grab my bow and I'll pull you out!"

Petrie looked to see the stick just a few inches away from him. He struggled to reach it, but the tar was letting him move so easily. Aylene leaned out farther, trying to keep her balance on the ledge. She stretched her arms out as far as she could and tried to reach Pteranodon.

"C'mon Petrie, reach!" She strained.

Finally, Petrie caught hold of the bow. Aylene tugged hard and ripped him clean out of the goo. She then carefully set him down on the edge. Petrie took a moment to catch his breath as Aylene started to wipe the tar off of him. Fortunately, though the tar was sticky, it wasn't hot.

"Are you okay, Petrie?"

"I okay now," He answered in a shaken voice.

"What happened?"

"Cera jump over ledge and I fall off into the goo!" Petrie explained. "I don't know where she gone! But what you doing here?"

"Just looking after my herd," Aylene smiled as she flicked off the last of the tar from her hand.

"Aylene!"

Aylene looked up and saw Littlefoot running toward her with Spike and Ducky close behind.

"Are you guys alright?" the longneck asked as he reached them.

"We're fine, Littlefoot," Aylene answered, "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah," Littlefoot panted. "Where's Cera?"

No one had to answer that question because in the distance they heard a terrified scream in a nearby cavern.

"CERA!" They all shouted in unison.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"HELP!"

Cera darted away from the domehead that was closing in on her. As it slammed its head down, she jumped up onto a nearby ledge. Since the cavern gave very little light, she almost missed another domehead that ambushed her from the front. She skidded to a stop and just barely got away when he pounded his head into the ground.

She ran in the opposite direction and the domehead followed her. She ran right into another one and it snarled at her. The other one from behind darted forward. She leapt off the edge just as the two head-butted. As she landed, she missed her footing and tumbled to the ground. Now the three domeheads surrounded her!

"HELP ME!" She screamed in terror. "HELP ME! HELP!"

As the domehead closed in for the kill, there was an unnatural, ear-piercing screech. They all looked and saw at the entrance to the path a huge, black, creature. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before. It had horns like things coming out of the sides of its head, a long nose, very thing body, and walked on all fours. As it moved in closer, it continued to make that screeching sound.

The domehead turned coward and ran away. Cera was too scared to run. The thing was now on top of her. When she regained control of herself, she swiped at it with her paw as its nose came down and grabbed her by the tail.

"Stop it!" She shouted, "Let go of me!"

The thing raised her up off the ground.

"HELP!" The threehorn cried in terror and shutting her eyes, "HELP! SPIKE, DUCKY, PETRIE, HELP!"

"Cera," a little familiar voice came from the thing, "it is US!"

Cera's eyes snapped opened at the sound of Ducky's voice. Feeling secretly relieved, she turned around to see her friends. Only her joy was soon gone when she saw three things: Littlefoot, Aylene, and the fact that they were all laughing!

Aylene walked around from the back, carrying her ocarina in one hand, and laughing with a big grin.

"Clever idea, Aylene!" Littlefoot chuckled when he saw her.

"Just get yourselves covered in tar, get some sticks for horns, I play a very bad pitch, and we got ourselves a terrifying monster!" Aylene grinned.

Cera, being held up by Littlefoot's tail, jerk herself out of his grip and fell into a small puddle of tar with a loud splat.

"I knew it was you all along!" She shouted angrily, "I knew! I did!"

No one paid attention to her. They were too busy laughing about their victory as well as Cera's reaction to their disguise. They secretly felt a grim satisfaction to the threehorn's panic, even if the prank on her specifically wasn't exactly planned.

"You should've seen your face!" Petrie blurted out.

"Oh, get out of my way!" The threehorn grunted as she stomped off. However, since she wasn't looking where she was going, she walked right into another tar puddle and slipped. They group snickered again as she fell. Ducky nearly keeled over as her sides began to hurt. Petrie fell over on his back and laughed so hard he could barely breathe.

Cera got up, stuck her horn in the air and began to walk away again. This time, she walked smack-dap into a large stalagmite. The group laughed harder at her constant clumsy moments.

Finally having enough, Cera gave her snobbish gesture and walked down the slope toward a waterfall.

The group continued to laugh as Littlefoot climbed off of Spike. Although after a while, Aylene's laughter dwindled and eventually faded. Suddenly feeling guilty, she turned and looked in the direction where Cera walked off.

"Cera?" She mumbled. She put her ocarina back in its case and stuck it into her gym bag as that small feeling of guilt began to grow.

"Guys," she said, "Don't you think we were a little too hard on her?"

At that, everyone stopped laughing and turned to look at the human. That was the last thing they would expect her to say since she was the one who had received the most grief from the Triceratops.

"Aylene, you better not do what I think you're going to do," Littlefoot warned; he knew her well enough by now that once she gets an idea, she usually goes for it. And there was no denying that look on her face.

"You guys get cleaned up," She gently ordered, "I'll be right back."

The others watched as Aylene made her way down the slope to the waterfall.

"I knew she was going to do something like that," Littlefoot groaned in worry.

"She either really brave or really dumb," Petrie said in surprise and somewhat impressed by the human's courage.

As the group looked for a place to wash off the tar, Aylene found Cera near the base of the waterfall. Cera didn't seem to have noticed her, but Aylene felt violent stab in her chest when she saw that Cera was crying.


	18. Chapter 18: The Understanding

**The Understanding**

Aylene cautiously approached Cera. When the threehorn heard the sound of footsteps, she whipped around. Her face didn't change too much, but she still wasn't particularly happy to see the human.

"What do you want?" She choked, trying to stop her tears.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," Aylene calmly answered.

"I'm fine," The Triceratops lied.

"No your not," Aylene frowned, "and I'm not saying that your lying."

Cera buried her face back in her forepaws, too ashamed to even look at Aylene. The human got down on her knees beside the threehorn and gently stroked her head. Cera felt the gesture and became confused. Why was Aylene acting so nice to her? Especially after all Cera had done to her: talked down to her, practically bullied her, and even shunned her at one point.

She looked at Aylene and to her surprise saw that she also had tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry if we scared you," Aylene softly said.

"Threehorns don't get scared," Cera bitterly replied.

"Cera," Aylene gently chided, "everyone gets scared. How do you think I felt when we first faced Sharptooth? Or even when I first came to this world? In all honestly, I was terrified."

Cera just stared at Aylene. The human sighed, thinking she wasn't getting through to the Triceratops.

"Look," she cast her gaze down, "Whatever I did to make you hate me I'm sorry but…"

"I don't hate you."

Aylene looked up at Cera in surprise. Cera's face had softened and for once she seemed to have a sense of humbleness in her eyes.

"Then why were you so antagonist toward me?" Aylene asked.

Cera looked away and muttered, "I saw you go back for Littlefoot in the thorn bushes."

Aylene's eyes slightly widened. Why was that so significant?

"When I saw that…I started to get jealous," Cera finally admitted.

"You were jealous of me?" Aylene questioned. No one ever said they were jealous of her for anything. "Why?"

Cera looked at Aylene with a pitiful expression.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," She frowned. "You ran back toward Sharptooth to save Littlefoot. And later, you stood up to him to save all of us."

"Is that it?" The human asked, slightly feeling awkward about the situation.

"Mostly," Cera looked away. "I admit it, Aylene, you're very smart and brave. I didn't want to admit it before because I guess I always saw you as an enemy, or opponent of some kind."

"I don't want to be your opponent or enemy, Cera," Aylene stroked the Triceratop's head again, "I want to be your friend."

Cera looked down at her paws.

"My dad always taught me that different herds can't be friends because we're all different," she said; remember what happened the day she and Littlefoot were caught playing together.

Aylene gently smiled.

"Cera, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Littlefoot," She said, "To put it simply, herd doesn't mean separate species. Herd means family. And family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. Family isn't just something you are born into; it's also the friends you gain as life goes on. That's why Littlefoot and I came back for you guys. You're all apart of our herd, and we will never leave you guys behind ever again."

Cera looked up at Aylene with teary eyes. She then slowly climbed onto Aylene's lap as the girl hugged her around her neck, which was what the threehorn needed right now.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm sorry."

A few tears fell from Aylene's eyes as Cera nudged her face against her shoulder.

"And I'm sorry for being insensitive at times," Aylene apologized. "I'll try not to make that mistake again."

For a split second, Aylene's Time Stone flickered again. This time, Aylene noticed it. She looked at the Stone with curiosity. Was it starting to work again or was it just her imagination?

After a while, Cera got up and looked Aylene in the face with a soft smile.

"Thanks, Aylene," She said as she nuzzled the human's face. "You are a good friend after all."

Aylene returned the gesture by patting Cera's head. Then another thought crossed her mind.

"Cera," She said, "I'm not sure if Littlefoot would like it if I told you this, but you want to know why he was so upset when you insulted his mother?"

Cera stepped back. Aylene wasn't meaning to be offensive, but she still didn't like the fact she brought it up in the first place.

"His mother died saving all three of us from Sharptooth," Aylene solemnly explained. Cera remembered that fight clearly as Aylene continued. "Littlefoot and I were there when she…passed on."

Aylene wiped her eyes as tears began to form again. The memory of the sad, rainy night was still very vivid in her mind.

"I…I didn't know," Cera bit her lip.

"It's not too late though," Aylene said, "You can still apologize."

Cera looked away, saying nothing.

"It's okay to have a sense of pride," Aylene explained, "But don't let it get in the way of doing the right thing. To me, being honest is worth way more than just being tough."

Cera sighed, "Let's just get back to the others."

Aylene nodded and slowly got up. As the two began to walk away from the waterfall, Cera quickly added,

"And for the record, you're not fat."

Aylene giggled slightly, "Thanks. And neither are you."

The two companions walked back up the slope and through the cave. After a few minutes, they found the others outside in a small pond just swimming around. By now they washed off all the tar and were now just enjoying the coolness of the water.

While Littlefoot and Spike swam in the shallows, Ducky ventured a little farther out into the deepest part of the pond. Petrie just waded on the edge of the shore, not wanting to go further in.

"Aylene! Cera!" Littlefoot called out when he saw them.

Aylene and Cera walked around the pond over to the group as they all got out of the pool near the a large boulder. The first thing that Cera did was walk up to Littlefoot and say very sincerely,

"Littlefoot, Aylene told me what happened that night we were first attacked by Sharptooth. I…I didn't know that happened to your mother. I take back what I said before."

Everything one at first looked very surprised at Cera's apology, especially Littlefoot. This was the last thing he was expecting from Cera, but she said it herself. The longneck then looked up at Aylene, who slowly nodded back.

"It's okay," Littlefoot gently smiled at Cera. "I forgive you."

Cera modestly smiled. She never expected that forgiveness could feel so good, even if it was from a longneck.

Feeling a sense of joy and relief, everyone crowded together for a group hug, each of them enjoying the others' company.

"So it's agreed," Littlefoot said, "We'll find the Great Valley together."

"Defiantly," Cera replied.

Spike nodded in agreement.

"Yep, yep, yep!" Ducky cheered happily.

Aylene felt a sense of warming pride. Finally, their herd had come to an understanding.

However, their peace and quiet was shattered by the sound of an all too familiar roar!

"AUGH!" Petrie screamed as he looked up, "SHARPTOOTH!"


	19. Chapter 19: The Final Conflict

**The Final Conflict**

The whole gang rushed behind the rock when the flyer shouted the monster's name. Aylene and Littlefoot carefully peeked out and saw that Sharptooth was near the top of the large cliff that was on the same side as the group. The sun burned high in the sky behind the small mountain he was on, making his outline nightmarish and threatening.

"It's Sharptooth all right," Littlefoot said in a hushed voice as he saw Sharptooth sniff the air intently. Obviously he was trying to find their scent.

"He must've followed us," Aylene nervously replied.

"Of course he followed us," Cera snapped, "I told you that once Sharptooth chooses his prey, he won't stop until he gets it!"

"Oh, I believe you on that one," Aylene glanced back at Triceratops.

Littlefoot scowled up at the T-Rex. "Let's get rid of him once and for all."

Everyone turned and looked at the longneck, who had a determined look on his face.

"I'm with you, Littlefoot," Aylene responded.

"Are you guys crazy?!" Cera said harshly. "No one has ever defeated Sharptooth before. Sure, we've managed to escape from him, but most of that was pure luck. We should just find a way around him."

"If we do that he'll just continue to chase us even if we GET it to the Great Valley," Aylene explained. "And frankly, I'm not going to just let this monster hunt us down anymore. If we worked together, I'm sure we can defeat him."

"But what'll we do?" Ducky asked.

Littlefoot scanned around their environment. "Look, we'll coax him to the deep end of the pond. He can't swim with those scrawny arms." Littlefoot then looked up and saw directly above them a tall cliff with a large boulder sitting on top of it. "Cera, Spike and I will go up there and push that big rock on top of his head. And then he'll fall off into the water."

"Sounds good so far," Aylene said before turning to Petrie. "Petrie, you whistle when he's just at the right spot: where the water gets dark."

Petrie sharply nodded. "You can count on me."

"What about you, Aylene?" Cera asked.

Aylene pointed to a ledge just above the pond just opposite of the ledge with the boulder Littlefoot was planning to use. "I'll station myself up there and cover for you guys with my arrows. If Sharptooth attacks, I'll trip him up as best I can."

"Good idea," Littlefoot replied. "Now we just need some bait."

As if everyone knew what the others were thinking, they all turned and looked at Ducky.

"ME?!" Ducky squeaked. "Oh no! No, no, no, no! No, no, no, no!"

"Relax, Ducky," Cera grinned impishly, "All you have to do is lure him out here and we'll take care of the rest."

"Besides," Aylene added, "Once you get out here, you'll be in your element. You can swim and he can't. You'll have the advantage."

The human peeked around the rock and saw that Sharptooth was climbing up higher toward the peak of the cliff. She could just barely make out a black opening where he was heading.

"Looks like he's heading for that cave," she stated, "If we're going to do this, then we better get ready while we can."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Feeling terribly alone, Ducky made her way up toward the cave where Sharptooth had just entered. Keeping in the shadows, she tiptoed to a rock big enough to hide her if she ducked down.

She shivered and crouched as Sharptooth suddenly stopped and growled. She peaked over the rock and noticed that he was looking in the opposite direction. She had to get him out of the cave and down near the pond where the others were waiting. She took a deep breath and prepared to do something that would be considered desperately stupid.

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

She quickly fell behind the rock again as the sound caught Sharptooth's attention. He jerked up in alert and began to scan the cave.

Shivering, and with a heart pounding hard, Ducky peaked over the rock again. This time, there was nothing there but an empty cave with the sound of water dripping down from the ceiling. She looked around the cavern, but there was no sign of Sharptooth.

She cautiously stepped back. Perhaps Sharptooth went further into the cave. Either way, her nerve was starting to give way and she decided to leave. She was about to make her way toward the mouth of the cave when…

BOOM!

Sharptooth leapt from what seemed to be out of nowhere BEHIND the little swimmer!

Ducky couldn't even scream; she just sprinted right underneath him and headed toward the exit. Sharptooth dove for her. Luckily, he missed. However, as he slid down the slope, she jump to avoid his jaws and ended up on his nose. The both of them continued downward toward the pond.

"HELP!" Ducky cried as the two of them reached the pool.

Ducky then hastily swam to a set of rock underwater as Sharptooth got up. She could hold her breath for a long time, and hopefully long enough for the others to go through with their end plan.

Meanwhile from above, Petrie attempted to whistle. After about four tries, he finally succeeded. Sharptooth looked up at the sound and saw Littlefoot looking over the edge. Littlefoot gasped in horror as his assassin made eye contact with him, and he was angry.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sharptooth glared up at the longneck. So, this was HIS plan: to push that boulder on top of him and force him down into the water. Not if he had anything to say about it. That little runt was going to die today, one way or another!

As the longneck, threehorn, and spiketail runts began to push the boulder, Sharptooth got ready to jump up when a small rock hit his snout. He glared up at the little flyer who was obviously laughing. Angered, the carnivore rammed his head against the side of the ledge.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Petrie lost his grip and began to fall toward Sharptooth.

"PETRIE!" The others cried as he fell toward the monster.

The Pteranodon barely avoided his jaws and was suddenly pushed upward by Sharptooth's breath as the monster roared in frustration.

As Petrie flapped his wings to keep himself steady, he found that he was staying airborne. Although very clumsy, he found that he could keep himself up.

"I flying," he muttered before shouting with joy, "I flying! I FLYING!"

"HELP!" Ducky cried as she swam away from Sharptooth as he lunged toward her, falling onto his stomach.

"PETRIE, GET DUCKY OUT OF THERE!" Cera ordered.

With his newfound confidence, Petrie swooped down and grabbed hold of the eyelids of Sharptooth's bad eye. The monster roared in pain and whipped up out of the water. With this distraction, Petrie flew toward the water and grabbed Ducky with his feet. With this new weight, he found that he was having a struggle flying upwards.

Sharptooth saw his chance and was just about to lunge for them when he felt a horrible pain in his back. He roared in agony and whipped around and looked on the opposite ledge.

"BACK OFF, SHARPTOOTH!" Aylene shouted as she aimed another arrow directly at his chest. "OR THE NEXT ONE'S GOING IN YOUR HEART!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That girl again! The one who dared to stand up to him! Now she was doing it again! No doubt SHE also thought of this plan, too!

He had enough! She may have beaten him once a long time ago, but he refused to let it happen a second time! She was NOT going to haunt him anymore!

Sharptooth rammed his head against the rock, making Aylene lose her balance. She fell over onto the rock and laid flat down as the rock swayed back and forth. The T-Rex rammed into it again, this time causing a crack in the center.

From behind, he felt a rock hit the back of his head. He whipped around and saw that the longneck had thrown a rock at him with his tail.

"Stay away from her!" the runt shouted in his flatteeth tongue.

Now fully enraged, Sharptooth darted toward the edge and smacked right into it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Littlefoot lost his balance due to the impact and almost fell over the edge. He clung on to the cliff for dear life and struggled to get back up. Sharptooth was now directly below him. As the monster jumped up to take a bit out of the little hatchling, Littlefoot yelped and coiled up, just barely dodging the monster's jaws. He still continued to slip. If he didn't get up in time, he would be falling toward the impending doom.

Aylene saw the situation and quickly got up.

"I promised!" She forcefully whispered, desperately reaching deep inside and seizing her inner strength. "I PROMISED!"

She grabbed her bow and strung the arrow. Sharptooth was in just the right position she needed to make this shot work. He was about ready to jump up and snatch Littlefoot in his jaws.

"SHARPTOOTH!" She shouted.

Sharptooth looked around in her direction.

_TWANG!_

_ZIP!_

_THACK!_

The arrow hit its target.

Sharptooth howled in pain as the arrow pierced his heart.

The monster staggered, giving Littlefoot just enough time to get back up onto the ledge. With the help of his friends, they pushed the boulder off and onto Sharptooth's head. By then, the T-Rex's life was just about drained. He fell over into the water with a huge splash.

Everyone watched for a moment as the monster that had pursued them sank to the bottom of the pool. As the giant ripples faded, there was a stream of dark red emerging from the depths.

Just as everyone began to feel relieved, it faded by the sound of crackling rock. Everyone turned sharply and saw that the rock Aylene was standing on began to topple. Aylene swayed for a moment as the rock began to tip. Her face went pale as she realized what was going on.

The crack that Sharptooth had made weakened the base and the rock finally broke, taking Aylene with it!

To everyone's horror, Aylene plummeted into the water. She disappeared under the surface along with the ledge.

"AYLENE!"

The little dinosaurs raced down the ridge to the pool.

"Can Aylene swim?!" Cera asked concerned.

"I don't know!" Littlefoot answered in a scared voice. "I just hope so!"

As they drew closer to the water, they could see that her bow had floated to the surface. They stopped on the edge and desperately scanned the pond. Sadness began to grow as they began to think that she might not surface at all.

From the center of the pool, small bubbles began to form. With each second, more and more appeared. Finally, Aylene burst out of the water like a mermaid, gasping for air.

The children shouted in joy and relief as Aylene grabbed her bow and swam to shore. When she got there, she immediately crawled out and started coughing up water, struggling to fill her lungs with air again.

"Aylene!" Ducky leapt up and hugged the girl by the arm. "You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive," Aylene panted and shivered as cold water trickled down her body, "It'll take more than a drop in the water to keep me down."

Petrie swooped in and landed on Aylene's shoulder. He hugged her neck and she choked.

"Aylene, you brave!" He happily said.

"Thanks, Petrie," she coughed, "But could you like go! I'd like to breathe!"

Petrie immediately let go and sheepishly replied, "Oops, sorry!"

Cera and Spike nuzzled Aylene's face while Littlefoot wrapped his neck around her.

"We're just glad you're alright," Littlefoot smiled. "You had us worried there."

"I'm sorry," Aylene modestly grinned as she embraced her compainions.

For a moment the group sat at the edge of the pond, calming themselves down after that battle. At long last, Sharptooth, the "Walking Terror" of the land, was finally defeated and Littlefoot's mother was avenged.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As evening closed in, the gang decided to rest in the cave for the night. Fortunately, Aylene managed to find some dried sticks to use to make a campfire as they headed up the slope. When they reached the cave, she made a fire pit out of medium sized rocks, arranged the sticks in that same specific order, struck two other rocks together, and created a fire.

As the others sat around the flames, the human took the things in her back out and laid them out to dry. Once done with that, she rejoined them, leaning against Littlefoot's side. For a moment, there was just silence except for the crackle of the fire and the dripping of the stalagmites.

"This was quite a day, huh?" Aylene sighed as she reflected on the events that had taken place.

"Yeah," Cera said as she watched the flames curl and flicker, "who would've thought that we would end up doing the impossible."

"I know," Ducky nodded. "We defeated Sharptooth himself. And we're just hatchlings."

"No," Aylene smiled, "We're more than that now. We're survivors and adventurers."

Everyone nodded in agreement. After all they've been through, that statement was very true.

"You think anyone will know about this?" Petrie asked.

"We'll know," Littlefoot said proudly. "We were quite a team today."

"You got that right," Aylene smiled. "We beat the odds by working together. And we must never forget that."

Everyone nodded. This was certainly something they would never forget.

She then turned to Petrie. "And congratulations to you for finally earning your wings."

Petrie smiled proudly and began to fly circles around the room.

"I a true flyer now!" He gleefully said.

Everyone laughed with pride at his victory. Then as a sign for the others, Spike yawned and stretched.

"I think Spike has the right idea," Ducky sleepily replied. "Yep, yep, yep."

"Yeah, we better get some sleep," Littlefoot yawned, "we have a long day tomorrow. I just hope it's our last one for this journey."

The group huddled together just like the night before and drifted off to sleep in the safety of their herd with the warmth of a slowly fading fire.


	20. Chapter 20: The Great Valley

**The Great Valley**

As sunlight began to shine through the cave, Littlefoot slowly opened his eyes. He looked at his sleeping companions and smiled. Everyone was safe. The only one who was missing was Aylene. He looked to the mouth of the cave and saw her standing outside. He slowly got up and walked over to her.

"Good morning, Aylene."

Aylene turned her head around and smiled, "Good morning yourself, Littlefoot. Sleep well?"

"Yes, and you?"

"Yeah," Aylene shrugged, "Just wanted to get some fresh air and watch the sunrise."

The two watched as the sun slowly rose up over the mountain to the east, over the same trail that had traveled on the past few days. Nostalgia swept over them as they looked up at the purple clouds streaked with gold lining in a reddish-gold sky.

As Littlefoot thought back on their adventure, he realized something: Aylene never answered his question about whether she had dinosaurs back in her world. The only thing she did was become very startled by it. Just the way she reacted made him curious.

"Aylene,"

"Yeah?"

"You never answered my question about if there are dinosaurs where you're from," The longneck tentatively asked. "I was just curious as to whether you do or not."

Aylene looked away and sighed. She had a feeling this question would come up again. Well, she was going to have to tell him sooner or later, and now seemed to be a good time.

"Well, first off," She calmly said as she looked at her feet. "Do you promise not to freak if I tell you?"

Littlefoot slowly nodded, unsure of where Aylene was going with this.

Finally, the human girl took a deep breath and told the truth.

"Dinosaurs in my world are extinct. In other words, they're all dead and have been for thousands of years."

Littlefoot's eyes widened and he stepped back a little.

"How we know about them is by people who are called archeologists," Aylene continued, "They study the past by digging up remains that the earth has buried over time. Where I come from, we have found dinosaur remains such as fossilized skeletons, or full bone structures that have been preserved by the earth, and various things that were around during the time of the dinosaurs of my world that were buried over time."

She sighed and rubbed her arm, "Well, that's the best I can explain."

"So," Littlefoot nervously asked, "you're saying that all dinosaurs will die out in this time?"

Aylene smiled slightly, "Actually, I don't think so. You see, according to fossil records in my world, you and Cera wouldn't have existed in the same timeline. The Apatosaurus came before the Triceratops. As I journeyed with you guys, I realized that dinosaurs from different time frames in my world coexisted in this world. So I actually think that this world, while connected to mine, isn't exactly like mine. I think you guys will be fine."

While the idea of extinction was still disturbing, Littlefoot managed to smile as Aylene gave him back a sense of hope. She told him the truth and he could respect that.

Aylene wiped the sweat from her forehead, relieved that Littlefoot took the news so well.

"We don't have to mention this to the others, do we?" She tentatively asked.

Littlefoot just grinned and winked. "For now, it'll just be our little secret."

"Okay," Aylene giggled.

The two looked up in the sky as the clouds began to change shape. One of the clouds, the closest one to them, slowly morphed into the image of a longneck. Littlefoot's eyes glistened as it reminded him of his mother. He hung his head sadly. Aylene looked at him with sympathy and gently rubbed his neck. He looked at her and they both shared a warming smile.

"I'm sure she would be very proud of you," she kindly said.

As the wind blew gently around them, a voice whispered.

"_Littlefoot,"_

The two jolted and looked up at the sky. When they looked closely enough, it seemed as if the cloud was _looking_ at them.

"Mother?" the little longneck whispered.

"_Littlefoot,"_ his mother's voice whispered a little stronger.

Then slowly, the cloud began to drift away toward the west.

"Littlefoot," Aylene suddenly said, "I know this may sound weird, but I think she wants you to follow her!"

Littlefoot looked at the human with a confused expression.

"Go!" She commanded. "I'll wake the others!"

Littlefoot stiffly nodded and set out sprinting after the purplish cloud. He raced around the hill and into a small cavern. Like a large wisp, the cloud trailed into the tunnel, guiding its little follower. Littlefoot ran down a small slope and skidded to a halt. The cloud rose high into the sky and took on the form of his mother again. As if a light shining from her heart, sunlight shot through the cloud and trickled across the land below.

Littlefoot stared in wonder as he saw the landscape before him. Below were lush, green meadows, dozens upon dozens of trees; both short and tall, and several waterfalls flowing down into bright blue rivers and streams. A sweet, heavenly smell of wild flowers swept up in the wind as if to welcome him to his new home.

"The Great Valley!" the longneck stared in awe of the scene before him.

"LITTLEFOOT!" A voice called from behind.

"AYLENE!" Littlefoot called out, "GUYS OVER HERE, QUICK!"

A few seconds later, the others came rushing through. All of them saw the paradise before them and joy filled their souls.

"Littlefoot, you found it!" Ducky squealed in delight.

There was no mistaking it. They had finally made it to the Great Valley!

"We did it!" Littlefoot shouted with happiness. "We did it together!"

Everyone rushed down the side of the cliff as fast as they could and ran across the meadows toward the heart of the valley. Ducky and Spike immediately headed toward a stream of fresh water and plunged in.

"Ducky?!"

The little swimmer looked up. Happiness rushed through her as she saw her mother and siblings near the edge of the river. Spike skidded to a stop near the family of swimmers and smiled.

"This is our new brother, Spike!" Ducky laughed as she leapt up on his back.

The little swimmer's mother bent down and lovingly nuzzled her daughter and adoptive son. Ducky then jumped into the water and joyously embraced her siblings. They then climbed up onto Spike and welcomed their new brother into the family.

Petrie flew up to the top of the trees and found his mother as well as his siblings. Proudly, he glided toward them shouting happily, "Mama, I a flyer!"

Petrie's mom caught him as he flew into her arms and embraced with joy and happiness. The flyer's siblings cheered as their brother had finally returned.

"Daddy!" Cera cried as she ran through the tall grass toward the elder threehorn.

"Cera?!" Her father looked up in surprise as he herd his daughter's voice.

Cera raced straight through a patch of flowers. When she reached her father, he lovingly nuzzled her and she returned the gesture.

Littlefoot, carrying Aylene on his back, sprinted toward the longneck's grandparents.

"Grandma! Grandpa!" Littlefoot joyfully shouted as the two reached them.

"Littlefoot!" The two elders tenderly nuzzled their grandson, all three sharing laughter and the joy of being reunited.

"Oh, Littlefoot," Grandma Longneck sighed happily.

"How did you make it here?" Grandpa Longneck asked.

"Aylene helped me get here," Littlefoot looked at the human girl.

The two elder Apatosaurus looked at Aylene. She modestly smiled and slightly bowed her head.

"I was happy to help," she answered.

Grandpa and Grandma Longneck lowered their heads to her and she soon found herself caught in between them as they gratefully nuzzled her.

"Thank you so much," Grandma Longneck said.

"You're welcome," Aylene replied.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

About an hour later, the dinosaur children were running happily across the plains of the Great Valley. With their journey finally over, they could have some fun again. No more running away from carnivores, no more having to climb mountains, no more missing their families, and no more worrying about when they'll find food. Everything they needed was right here in the Valley.

Well, almost everyone.

Aylene sat alone on a green hill under the shade of the tall trees, gazing up at the clouds as they gently floated across the blue sky. She pulled her knees in and hugged them as she dismally thought of her family back in her world. They were probably climbing the walls with worry by now and she had no way of getting back to them. She thought that once she reached the Great Valley, her Time Stone would immediately take her home. But still, it did nothing. She sighed with despair as she thought that she might never get home.

"Aylene?"

Aylene looked over her shoulder and saw the others behind her.

"Hey guys," She mumbled.

"You okay, Aylene?" Petrie flew in front of her and landed at her feet. "You look very sad."

"It's just," the girl hesitated, "I want to go home, but I have no idea of how to do it. I don't even know how I managed to get here it in the first place. I really miss my family, and I'm sure they're all worried about me by now, but I don't know if I'll ever see them again."

Aylene buried her face in her knees as she resisted the urge to cry. The other children crowded around her and did their best to give her comfort.

"We'll find a way, Aylene," Cera said, trying to be optimistic, "We always do."

"Cera's right," Ducky nodded, "After all, we are a herd, right?"

Aylene lifted her face and smiled at her companions.

"And we never leave anyone behind," Littlefoot added. "You helped us, and now it's our turn to help you."

Spike nodded in agreement.

Aylene wiped her eyes as tears began to form.

"You know, I'm really lucky to have friends like you." She said. "And I actually owe you guys my thanks."

"Huh?" The five little dinosaurs wondered what Aylene meant by that.

"You guys helped me out more than you know," She explained. "I know that if I was alone in this world I would've panicked. And I probably would've been Sharptooth's meal that very first night. But you showed me just how strong I could be and gave me a sense of company. You all gave me strength when I needed it. That's what really gave me the courage to stand up and defend. On top of that, you're some of the best friends I've ever had."

The words Aylene spoke touched the children. She was truly sincere and it nearly melted their hearts.

"I just want to say," She concluded, "Thanks for being my herd."

Suddenly, the Time Stone flashed a near blinding light. Everyone shut their eyes and looked away as a beam shot out of the center of the stone. As if hitting an imaginary wall, the ray grew into a large, greenish circle. Aylene opened one eye slightly and saw in the center of the sphere was the image.

"What's that?" Littlefoot gasped at the display before them.

Aylene's eyes widened. She knew exactly what it was!

"I-It's my room," she stuttered in shock, "It's my world!"

"You mean…" Cera began before Aylene interjected happily.

"I can go home now!"

Aylene was about to rush through the portal when she suddenly stopped. The others looked at her with confusion. Why was she hesitating? Her way home was open, why didn't she just jump through?

"What are you waiting for Aylene?" Littlefoot asked. "You can go home."

Aylene slowly turned toward her friends.

"It just occurred to me," She said sadly, "What if…this is a one way thing?"

"What do you mean?" Ducky asked.

"I mean," Aylene rubbed her arm and casted her gaze down, "Once I go through, what if I can never come back?"

The group looked at each other. Never see Aylene again? Even after all they've been through? No! She couldn't leave them for good!

"You don't have to go, you know," Cera spoke up, almost pleading, "You can stay here with us."

"That's right," Ducky replied, "We can be you're family. We can, we can."

Aylene looked at the swimmer as tears began to rise in her eyes. "Thanks, Ducky. But face it; I live in a whole different world. And I miss it."

Ducky sadly nodded, knowing that Aylene was right. The human girl sniffled as she forced herself not to cry.

"I am really happy I met all of you," She choked, "But…it's time for me to be going home. My world needs me, too."

Littlefoot sadly nodded. "We understand. Then…we better say our good-byes here."

Aylene nodded in agreement. She went up to Spike first, who looked at her with tearful eyes.

"You be good, okay Spike," She knelt down and gently hugged him around the neck. "I'll miss you."

Spike licked Aylene's cheek and sadly moaned. Aylene then turned to Petrie who flew up into her arms and hugged her neck.

"Me gonna miss you Aylene," He sadly said.

"I'll miss you, too, Petrie." The pain of saying good-bye slowly grew in Aylene's chest. "I hope you become a fantastic flyer one day."

Aylene set Petrie down and scooped up Ducky, who was already in tears.

"Must you really go?" the swimmer sobbed.

"You know I have to," Aylene choked. "But I'll always be your friend."

Aylene set Ducky down as the swimmer wiped away her tears. She then turned to Cera. The Triceratops bitterly looked away.

"Cera?"

"No, not me," She clenched as she fought back her sadness, "I don't do good-byes!"

Aylene gently placed her hand on Cera's shoulder. Cera looked at the girl with tears brimming her eyes.

"Well," Aylene struggled to say, "I just want to say; I hope you become a strong Triceratops someday."

Cera sadly nudged Aylene's face as the human hugged her around neck. Slowly, the tears started making their way out her eyes. The ache in her grew greater with each farewell.

However, the last good-bye would by far be the most painful.

Littlefoot.

Aylene got up and looked at the longneck. The one who had been with her since her adventure began. The one who she had come to regard as her little brother. She felt as if her heart cracked inside her chest as the tears she fought so hard to keep back began do roll down her face.

Littlefoot stared at Aylene as tears rose in his eyes. She had been by his side ever since his mother was killed. She never once turned her back on him. As time had gone on, he came to regard her as an older sister. Saying goodbye to her was like saying goodbye to another family member.

The two rushed together and Aylene wrapped her arms around his neck. Littlefoot placed his head over her shoulder for a hug. Aylene trembled and sobbed as she clutched at his neck and rubbed her face against it.

"Thanks for being my friend," she whispered, "I'll miss you."

Littlefoot looked at her as tears rolled down his face. He grimaced as the pain in his heart grew and hugged her tighter. He sniffled and tried to steady his breathing.

"I'll miss you, too," He whimpered.

The two pulled away and looked at each other. They both smiled at each other as best as they could.

"Take care of them for me, Littlefoot" Aylene choked.

Littlefoot nodded. "I will. Thanks for everything, Aylene."

With the goodbyes said, Aylene walked toward the portal. Before stepping through, she took on last glance back at her friends. She waved farewell, and they acknowledge her gesture.

Finally, Aylene stepped through the portal, back into her world. The portal closed behind her and the Time Stone stopped glowing.

At long last, Aylene was home.


	21. Chapter 21: Elaine's Story

**Elaine's Story**

"Aylene! It's time to go!"

"Mom?!" Aylene whispered as she heard the sweet sound of Elinor's voice.

She immediately burst out of the room and called down the hall. "MOM, IS THAT YOU?!"

"Aylene," her mother's voice came again. "Is everything okay?"

Aylene rushed to the staircase and scrambled down it. At the bottom near the front door was her mother. Aylene didn't even hesitate for a moment; she immediately rushed toward her.

"MOM!"

Aylene fell into her mother's arms and let her tears fall again. Her mom, although very confused, wrapped her arms around her daughter, trying to comfort her.

"Aylene, what's wrong?" She asked concerned. "And why are you so dirty?"

Aylene hardly noticed that she was covered with dirt and grass stains. But at the moment she didn't care. She sobbed as she cherished her mother's loving embrace.

"Hey, did something happen?" Aylene's dad entered the foyer when he heard the commotion.

Aylene looked up at her father. "DAD!"

She immediately rushed toward him and hugged him tightly as the tears continued to fall. Jonathan hugged her close, baffled as to why she was so upset.

"Elinor, what happened?"

"I don't know," his wife shrugged, "She just bolted from the stairs and…"

"Hey," Derek interrupted as he entered the hall. "What's going on?"

"DEREK!"

To her brother's surprise, his little sister threw herself at him and embraced him tightly.

"Hugging! _Weird!_" He stammered as Aylene's reaction caught him off guard.

At that moment, the front door opened and Aylene's grandfather entered.

"Okay, the car is all packed so we can…"

"GRANDPA!"

Aylene rushed to Richard and hugged him just like she did to the rest of her family.

"A-Aylene!" He stuttered in surprise, "What's wrong?"

Aylene looked up as tears continued to flow down her face. "Haven't you all been wondering where I was?!"

The family just looked at each other in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Her mother gently asked.

"H-Haven't I been gone for days?!"

"What are you talking about?" Derek said, baffled by her question, "You were only in your room for five minutes."

"_Five minutes?!"_ Aylene thought. So she WASN'T gone for days?! Was this really the same day when she was suddenly warped to that other world?!

"Elinor," another loving voice said from the end of the hall. Aylene looked up and saw her grandmother. "I think little Aylene has had a little too much of the sun."

Elaine walked up to her granddaughter and the two shared a loving embrace.

"Grandma," the girl whispered.

"It's alright, Aylene," She gently said, "You're fine now."

Elaine then turned to the rest of the family.

"I'll stay home and look after Aylene, you all go and enjoy the lake."

"But mom…" Elinor said concerned.

"It's okay, my dear," Elaine calmly said. "I can take care her. You all go and have a good time."

Aylene wanted to speak up, but she felt drained from all these events. She didn't want her family to go. She just got them back. But at the same time, she would feel bad if they missed a fun day because of her.

"I'll be okay," Aylene muttered. "You guys go and have fun."

The family hesitated for a moment.

"Alright," Jonathan sighed. "Only if you're sure."

Aylene simply nodded.

"Hey," Derek grinned, "Chin up. I'll make sure to bring you back a souvenir like one of those puna shell necklaces you like, okay?"

"Okay," Aylene smiled slightly, "Thanks."

"Well, we better get moving if we're going at all," Richard insisted.

Aylene watched as her family walked out the door and to the car. She felt a sharp jab in her chest as she saw them drive away.

"Aylene," her grandmother gently placed her hand on her shoulder, "Why don't you get yourself cleaned up and I'll fix you something to eat, okay?"

Aylene nodded and slowly made her way upstairs. She went into her room, took off her bow, quiver, gym bag, and got out a set of clean cloths. She then went to the bathroom and took a nice long shower. When she was done, she dried herself off and got dressed in denim shorts and a blue sleeveless. Wanting to clean her breath, she also brushed her teeth.

She went back to her room and got the Time Stone. She slipped it back around her neck as the memory of her friends flooded back to her, making her feel nostalgic and slightly melancholy.

Feeling clean and refreshed, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Elaine had just finished making Aylene a nice bowl of macaroni and cheese with a glass of milk. Nearly forgetting her manners, Aylene practically inhaled the meal.

"Whoa, Aylene," Elaine chuckled, "Slow down. You'll make yourself really sick."

"Sorry," Aylene gasped as she finished chugging her milk.

After Aylene ate her fill, she leaned back and gave a long sigh of content. That was the best meal she has had in a long time.

"So," her grandmother sat down on a chair across from Aylene, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Aylene looked up at her grandmother. She knew exactly what she meant by that. For a moment, the girl's face hardened into a small scowl.

"Why didn't you tell me about the Time Stone?" She asked in a low voice.

Elaine sighed.

"You wouldn't have believed me," she simply said. "I know what you're thinking. But you wouldn't have. I know this because I didn't believe my father when he told me about the Stone's power."

Aylene's eyes widened with surprise.

"You mean…others in this family have used the Time Stone?"

"Yes," Elaine nodded, "believe it or not, but that Stone has been passed down through many generations. I take it that the dinosaurs of that world have already shown that they know about humans?"

Aylene nodded.

"Well, I was one of those humans," her grandmother went on to explain, "Just like many others in our family."

"But…why didn't you give this Stone to my mom or Derek?" Aylene asked, "I mean, if this stone has been passed down through many generations, would one of them have been next in line?"

Elaine sighed almost sadly.

"Sometimes the stone skips generations apparently." She replied. "I don't fully understand it myself, but Elinor could never find a way to make the stone work. I never told her of its power because, well she wouldn't have believed me for one, but also because I was hoping she would find out about its power. But the Stone never worked for some reason."

Aylene frowned. The thought of her mother being left out of something like this made her feel sad for some reason.

"And Derek isn't as interest in dinosaurs as you are," her grandmother continued, "You would've gotten more out it than he would've.

"I still wished you told me sooner," Aylene admitted.

"I know," Elaine sighed.

For a moment, the two said nothing. Aylene will still trying to make herself believe that she was really back home. Every second passed and for a while she was worried she would wake up and find out this was all a dream. But after a while, she came to believe she was back home. It was too real to be a dream.

"You want to hear about my adventure," Aylene asked.

"I'd be delighted to," Her grandmother gently smiled.

Aylene took a deep breath and began to retell her story. When she got to the part of first encountering Sharptooth, Elaine jolted.

"Did you say his name was "Sharptooth"?" She asked sharply.

"Yes," Aylene answered tentatively, "Why?"

"Just continue on," Her grandmother intently prompted, "I'll tell you once you're done."

Eager to hear what Elaine had to say about the monster, Aylene got through her story as quickly and carefully as she could. She told her about meeting Littlefoot, Cera, Petrie, Ducky, and Spike. She told her about them journeying to the Great Valley, the encounters with Sharptooth, Littlefoot's mother and her sacrifice, and finally how she and her friends defeated Sharptooth.

"After that, we found the Great Valley and the Time Stone allowed me to come home."

Aylene became concerned when she saw that her grandmother wasn't responding to her. She was just staring at her with surprise.

"Grandma?"

"Aylene," Elaine finally said, "You and you're friends are going to become legends in that world."

"What do you mean?" The girl asked.

"Sharptooth has plagued that land for many years," Elaine explained. "Many dinosaurs and humans have tried to take him down, but until now, they were unsuccessful."

"How do you know?"

Elaine looked at her granddaughter straight in the eye and said,

"Because I fought Sharptooth once."

Aylene gasped.

"When I was a little older than you," Her grandmother explained, "my dinosaur friend, who was a Diplodocus, and I tracked Sharptooth down and found him attacking the Great Valley."

Aylene stared in shock. Sharptooth had been to the Great Valley before?!

"It was a long battle," Elaine continued, "but I managed to get a few shots in him and my friend managed to knock him down into the gorge."

"I didn't know you knew archery," Aylene commented.

"Believe me," Her grandmother grinned proudly, "you didn't just get your skills from your grandfather."

Aylene looked up in surprise.

"Does grandpa know about this?" She curious asked.

"No," Elaine shook her head; "I met him after all these events happened. I have thought about telling him several times, but I just never knew how. Plus, I can't exactly show him either."

"Why not?"

Elaine sighed, "When my friend and I found out that Sharptooth was still alive, we planned to track him down and defeat him once and for all. Although he was injured from the previous battle, he was still a threat to that world. But before we could do anything," Elaine paused for a moment, "the Time Stone stopped working for me."

Elaine sadly looked down at the table.

"I couldn't go back no matter how hard I tried. The only thing I could think of was that I had become too old or that it was time to pass the stone onto the next successor."

Aylene shared her grandmother's sadness.

"I know how you feel," She quietly answered.

"Oh, Aylene," Her grandmother smiled, "You're still young. The Stone should still work for you."

Aylene's eyes widened and her head snapped up.

"Really?!"

Elaine nodded.

"I didn't just use the stone once, you know. I may not know why it stopped for me, but you should still have the ability to use it."

"But…how?!"

"When the Time Stone starts glowing again, you'll be able to use it whenever you want."

A smile streaked across Aylene's face and her heart seemed to leap for joy.

"I can teach you the command I used to open the portals."

Aylene sharply nodded as she eagerly waited for the command.

"The one I use is simple, really," Elaine grinned. "Just say "Portal Open". However, the trick with any command is that you have to really wish for it. Don't just say it, mean it!"

Suddenly, Aylene realized how she got to that world in the first place. Before the Stone activated, she remembered that she wished that for a friend, which she sincerely meant. Then, when she was thanking her friends for being her herd, it opened a portal.

She then thought of the times when she constantly demanded to go home and the stone never activated. She must not have been sincere in her wish. She then realized why she wasn't so sincere about it: she was thinking of the others. When Littlefoot's mother died, she was thinking about his safety. When she left the group, she was still thinking about them. Although she wanted to go home, a part of her knew she couldn't because she was thinking about her friends and their safety.

It was all so simple yet so complicated at the same time. Aylene sighed as she processed the epiphany. Who'd have thought?

"Once the Time Stone starts glowing again," her grandmother explained, braking her trance, "then use the command to open a the rift. You'll be able to see your friends again."

Aylene smiled tenderly and embraced her grandmother.

"Thanks, grandma." She said.

"You're welcome, Aylene," Elaine replied.

After the two pulled away, Elaine placed a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder.

"Just promise me one thing," She said in serious tone. "Do not let anyone know about the Time Stone's power. There are some people who would love to get their hands on one just to go and capture a little helpless dinosaur for the sake of "observation". But it's our job to protect that world, not use it for our own gain. So promise me you'll keep it a secret."

Aylene nodded, "I promise."

"Good," Elaine sighed, "And if you ever want to talk about it, I'll always be ready to listen."

Before the two finished their conversation, Aylene asked one more question.

"Grandma, what is that world anyway? It can't be the past of this world for many reasons. So what is it?"

"I don't quite know myself," Elaine shrugged. "But I have come up with a name that fits it rather well."

"What kind of name?"

Elaine grinned.

"I call it…**The Land Before Time.**"


	22. Chapter 22: Always Together

**Always Together**

That evening, after the rest of the family returned from the lake, Aylene spent as much time with them as possible. Derek kept his promise and got his little sister a puna shell necklace; this one had a green coloring and was in the shape of a starfish.

Aylene was just relieved that her parents didn't ask too much about what happened earlier. Right now, she just wanted to enjoy a nice, quiet evening with them and have some fun. Even just a simple game of cards was very meaningful after all the time she was separated from them. And a nice game of scrabble to end the night was great for laughs, especially when they play it that whoever spells a certain word first automatically wins. And her grandmother's hot chocolate was always good for any gathering.

"_It is good to be home,"_ She smiled to herself as she sipped the delicious hot beverage.

The time eventually came for sleep. Aylene tiredly made her way upstairs and back to her room. As she changed into her pajamas, she wondered how her friends were enjoying their first night in their new home.

The moment Aylene hit the bed she instantly fell asleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Aylene looked around and saw that she was standing in the Great Valley in the middle of the night. The stars shown brightly in sky and the moon gave off its hopeful radiance._

_In front of her, a large shape began to take form. It arched its long neck down until its face was directly in front of Aylene. As it took on full form, the girl stared in wonder as she realized that it was Littlefoot's mother!_

_The translucent Apatosaurus looked at Aylene with eyes filled with gratitude. She smiled and nuzzled the girl. Aylene returned the gesture by petting her snout. The female longneck slowly pulled away and looked at Aylene._

"_Thank you," She said, "For saving my son."_

_Aylene smiled and nodded._

_Then almost as quickly as she came, the Apatosaurus gently faded away with the wind._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the Great Valley, Littlefoot gazed up at the night sky. He smiled softly as the stars' radiant glow reminded him that he was safe in his new home. He looked over at his sleeping grandparents and felt happiness grow in his heart.

Although Aylene left, he couldn't seem to shake the feeling that it wasn't the end. It was as if a small whisper was telling him that he would see her again. As for when, he wasn't sure. All he could do was hope that someday she would return.

"I hope it's soon," He whispered as he laid down his head and drifted off to sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When the week was over, Aylene's family left for home. After saying their goodbyes and thanks to Elaine and Richard, they piled into the car and drove back to their town. As Aylene watched the landscape fly before her, she replayed the memories of her adventure over and over in her head.

As the thought of them, a faint glow down in the corner of the window caught her attention. She glanced down and realized it was part of her reflection. She looked and saw that the Time Stone around her neck was starting to glow again. She smiled to herself and clasped the Stone around her neck. She knew what she was doing when she got home.

Five hours later, the family pulled up into the driveway. Aylene quickly helped carry the luggage in before grabbing her suitcase and archery equipment. She hastily got to her room and closed the door. She immediately unzipped the suitcase and rummaged through it for her green two-piece swimsuit, black gym shorts, and navy blue sandals.

After she laid those things out, she grabbed her gym bag and made her way to the kitchen. She filled up a large water bottle, grabbed a granola bars with a few packets of peanuts, and a few selected spices out of the cupboard. With those assembled, she threw them into the gym bag.

She then went to the laundry room and found a large beach towel in a cupboard above dryer. She rolled it up and stuck it in the gym bag. She then went back to her room, closed the door, pulled out a drawer of her desk, and grabbed her Swiss Army Knife, which she stuck into the gym bag.

She then opened her archery case and pulled out her bow and quiver, which was completely restocked with homemade arrows.

She quickly changed into swimsuit, shorts, and sandals, strapped on her quiver, threw her bag over her shoulders, put two black hair elastics on her left wrist, and put her bow over her shoulder. She was now ready.

"**Portal Open!"**

A stream of light emerged from the stone and the rift opened up. Without hesitation, Aylene leapt through. The portal closed behind her and she was back in the Great Valley. The warm sun sparked through the trees and the sweet smell of flowers and grass swept all around her.

"Now where are they?" Aylene looked around for any sign of her friends.

She looked to her right and a huge smile streaked across her face. On a small hill with his back turned toward her was Littlefoot.

"LITTLEFOOT!"

The longneck looked back in surprise as he heard his name called out by a familiar voice. He turned around and surprised happiness filled his soul.

"AYLENE!"

The two friends rushed to meet each other. When they reach each other, Aylene wrapped her arms around Littlefoot's neck and he rubbed his face against her soft hair.

"Aylene!" The longneck laughed. "But how'd you get here? I thought you went home?"

"I did," the human explained, "but as it turns out, my grandmother came here before me. She told me how to use the Time Stone. Now I can come here whenever I want!"

The two friends embraced each other again before they heard the sound of the others.

"Littlefoot!" Cera's voice came from over the hill.

Littlefoot and Aylene sprinted up the hill and were soon joined by the others. Joyful laughter overflowed from the group as they happily greeted Aylene and welcomed her back with friendly hugs.

"I knew you'd come back," Ducky cheerfully said. "Yep, yep, yep!"

"Me glad you back, me miss you!" Petrie responded happily.

"I missed you guys, too!" Aylene laughed as Spike licked her check.

"Welcome back, Aylene," Cera nuzzled Aylene's face.

They all huddled together into a group hug.

"Now we'll always be together," Littlefoot smiled.

Their herd was complete once again. Their journey was at an end. However, they knew that this was just the start, there were still more adventures out there that were waiting for them. As long as they faced them together, they knew they would be just fine.

**THE END**

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**Well, that's it! Land Before Time Retold is now complete!**

**I want to thank all of you for your views, comments, and feedback. I really appreciate your support and responses.**

**Some of you have requested for me to do the sequels as well. For those you have asked but haven't gotten a response, I sincerely apologize. I was either busy or I had no way of contacting you. **

**Anyway, if you would like me to do the sequels, please leave a note in the comments and I'll take a look at it.**

**Again, thank you all for reading my story and I hope to bring you more entertainment in the future.**

**Have a good day!**


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